Solicitude
by Treedok
Summary: Lloyd becomes an experimental plaything of Cruxis. Without intervention from Kratos, something goes wrong. Now, how will Lloyd amount to anything other than hazardous?
1. Chapter 1

_**How did it get like this?**_ Kratos vaguely wondered, as he stared into the snarling face of his son. If sepia could kindle, conflagrate, and then blaze into an inferno of unquenchable rage, such were his son's eyes as they hung mere centimeters in front of him. The monolith at Kratos' back was unyielding as he was shoved further against it – no, he wasn't being _shoved against_ it. He was being _smashed into_ it. Kratos' hands were firm around his son's wrists. But his son's hands remained wrapped around Kratos' neck. The Seraph gazed unwaveringly upon the long planes of Lloyd's face, the angular cut of his jaw, the hard eyes that held years' worth of anger. Never mind the anger – they were still Anna's eyes, full of her passion if not her joy.

Lloyd bore into Kratos, wringing him, quenching his breath, yet Kratos continued to study him in a dazed kind of surprise. He was a man now. His son was a man now. It wasn't a fact that he begrudged. But Lloyd seemed changed every time that Kratos returned. During his visits, Kratos noticed that the changes had come small at first – things like Lloyd's bearing as he stepped down the halls in his ever curtailing freedom, his boot size as he outgrew his wardrobe, his tone of voice as it morphed from affection to agitation. Then the changes came larger – the alteration of Lloyd's belief system as witnessed by both Kratos and Yuan during the rawer conversations, his power which had changed from bizarre to uncharted, his height as he gained his father's tallness. He was transforming into an Aurion more and more every day, and Kratos did not rue that reality. He only rued the circumstances by which it was happening and how others were kept well-informed of his own son while he was not. Now he could only catch up by openly watching Lloyd, as he was doing now. Though today's scrutiny wasn't the best example of the way that Kratos learned his son – Lloyd's hands at his throat evidenced that – just looking at him was usually a way for Kratos to imprint detail into his mind.

To those watching, the two men seemed startlingly alike in appearance. Hair fell in willful sweeps of dark russet to the neck, the son's more a lay of deeper brown. Matching faces captured identical strong jaws and eyes that conveyed a duality of defensiveness and provoked emotion. They stood at the same height – or nearly so. _**When did he ever get this tall?**_ Kratos absentmindedly wondered during his halfhearted struggle of staying his son's hands from choking him. But he wondered the same thing every time that he came back. Lloyd bent against him, and Kratos saw all of the Aurion in him now. It was nearly like looking in a mirror. Briefly, breathlessly – and albeit painfully – Kratos wondered when the broad shoulders had developed.

But there were still plenty enough differences between the two that could be noted at second glance – not enough differences to take the father out of the son, perhaps, but enough to view the son as distinct unto himself. The faces may have resembled each other, but the father's was of a calmer countenance. Kratos possessed a sort of composed tranquility in which he enveloped himself, today and every day and on a regular basis. Nothing escaped and nothing touched. He lived like an island. Even now, his expression was unruffled except for the faint suggestion of belated shock that could be read in his eyes. Lloyd, on the contrary, immersed himself in his ferocity and broken temper. There was a wildness about him. It could be read in his flashing dark irises, like deep chestnut-colored wells of abhorrence as they focused upon his father. His eyes were fierce, violent even. But more than anything, they were… feral. Feral, as though he were negotiating an inner chaos that was overflowing from him, a frenzy that he couldn't quite contain. He had faded cuts upon his face, only to be guessed about by those less intimately involved with him, and only serving to build upon the image of mania. His stance, his hair, and his face each contributed to a flyaway look. The very pattern of mana in which  
he was now cloaked presented him as something both untamed and untamable as he pressed his fingers into his father's neck.

All of this havoc in the break of an instant.

Kratos had been freshly arrived at the Centrum. His report was compiled, his examinations undergone, and he waited to be summoned by Mithos himself. He had been standing in the vault along with several other Cruxis militants when Lloyd had burst through the chamber doors, trailed by yet more Cruxis subjects.

"Where is he?!" Lloyd had furiously snapped, not expecting to be answered even as silence descended.

The young man had propelled himself forward in just a few long strides and, before Kratos could do much more than catch his first curious glimpse of his son, Lloyd's gloved fist had been unleashed into the left side of his face, connecting with his cheekbone in a harsh meeting. And, before Kratos could so much as fall back, Lloyd was upon him, slamming him bodily into the column by his neck and strangling him.

And that's where they were now.

Had he the breath to spare, Kratos would still have lacked any words to share with Lloyd in this disconcerting scenario. With his auburn hair splayed across his face, tension drawn in his back, and his cheek throbbing from Lloyd's blow, Kratos couldn't find it in himself to resist his son for very long, much less hurt him. Besides, this wasn't all that remarkable to him. Unfortunate, yes. Disappointing, sure. But it wasn't something that he could claim as entirely uncalled for – not by him and not by Yuan, and who only knew what Mithos was thinking? Anyway, this was nothing compared to the way that Lloyd had suffered. This wasn't even the first brunt of it.

"I don't want to see your face here!"

The strangest thing happened then. The room began to… shake. Not a shaking as though from one of Mithos' machinations, but a shaking as though the floor itself wanted to slide, like the foundations of the chamber were wrenched crooked and the walls wanted to tilt to align themselves with ambient forces and gravity's law.

Kratos did choke then, but not because of his son's physical ministrations. He choked because of the sudden smothering of mana that seemed to surge forth from his son, so thick and heady that it was almost palpable. It was tantalizing and crippling and stained Kratos with such horror that he clenched his jaw and eyes as he was blanketed beneath it along with the rest of the room. The rumbling continued. There was the sound of glass shattering.

And then:

"Lloyd, stop this."

Kratos opened his eyes when he heard the familiar, steady, and unmelodic voice breaking through the din. It was Yuan. Though Lloyd had not released him from his suffocation, Kratos felt his son give a single shudder from the very core of his being. He also felt the sudden repeal as channels of mana were pulled back, pulled back, pulled back toward Lloyd. The spread of mana ungracefully stuttered around Kratos as it was surely and haltingly manipulated into some sort of higher compromise that Kratos could not read. And, as Kratos stared up at the high arching ceiling, Lloyd's hands dropped from his throat, none too feebly. The room ceased to shake – but not all at once the way that it had begun. The shaking faded away in waves, in long, binding increments that left behind echoes of vibration. Kratos moved his head marginally to rest his eyes upon his cerulean-haired interceptor.

Lloyd exhaled.

Yuan swallowed.

And Kratos cleared his throat.

How did it get like this, indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

Years prior...

Kratos noticed the sky and its obstinacy – the darkening umbra of cumulus clouds and the static in the air. But not a single drop of rain. It hadn't rained when Anna died either. It hadn't even rained on the day that Colette Brunel's Journey of World Regeneration failed. And now it wasn't going to rain for Dirk's funeral.

For a small town, there were many people gathered there, forming a fair-sized mass of ebony – but not a single comment toward the Seraph's Cruxis garb. Whether they'd believe it or not, he wore his best, from his stiff collar down to his boot buckles. He knew that he was unwanted, at best, by the townspeople, but so what? So was Lloyd. So were Colette and the Sage siblings and the rest of their failed and fabled team. It felt like an act of barely obscured pity that they were even going through the motions of this ceremony. But they owed it to Lloyd, at least.

Lloyd.

The pale-faced brunet stood on the other side of the burial tract, across from Kratos' left side. He was flanked by Colette, Raine, and his grief. The drawn, haunted face was devoid of feeling, leaving his eyes as the only windows to his distress. How old was the boy? Seventeen years? Kratos almost flinched when he had to recalculate the math. It had been some months since they had disbanded after the catastrophe that was their journey. Since then, the Iselians beelined back here, to their home. Very predictably, the town couldn't welcome them home with open arms and celebration – only those close to the Journeyers treated them as fairly as before they had left, namely Frank and Phaidra – for Colette and company bore Iselia's disgrace which was to be shared by all of Sylvarant. The small, western country town acquired recognition, but it was for the wrong reasons. Under the circumstances, the mayor acted as the mayor was expected to act: actively contrite when it came to public disclosure, ostensibly magnanimous when it came to the Journeyers, and shamed and redfaced when it came to reality. But life went on.

Though the Journey came to an early close, interrupted midway by unforeseen complications that brought it to an irrevocable halt, the good that had been achieved was marred by the bad. In the end – if you wanted to imagine that the Tower of Salvation's collapse was any kind of closure – each gain seemed nullified by a particular course of inaction, and the only new world that was spat out was a recycled Sylvarant stretched tight with uncertainty. The history books would mark it a failed expedition, in any case, both for the people of Sylvarant and for Cruxis, depending on which history books you read. Kratos knew that. He also understood the precariousness of the situation.

When the Tower fell and Derris-Kharlan came to light, the Cruxis organization implemented its master stroke; it withdrew from the comet, relocated on Tethe'alla, and publically declared itself a commonwealth with allegiance to the Church of Martel. Tethe'allan legislature balked. The king found nothing recorded in the annals in keeping of sanctioned protocol for such a phenomenon, for Cruxis wasn't declaring itself an organization but a people, and the people were of a race neither human nor elf – nor half-elf, even! – and the proof was in the sky. The comet of Derris-Kharlan was a globe, not a country – or at least something closely translated to a world by the king's scholars. That made Cruxis an independent body, yet it couldn't be classified as invasive because it had immediately allied itself to the Church – a Church, Kratos knew, which had been puppeted by Cruxis all along. But the public didn't know that. A compact was petitioned by the king on behalf of the body politic of Tethe'alla, and Mithos dictated that Cruxis was, indeed, an "autonomous political entity" whose formal status and relationship to Tethe'alla was undefined. Its direct relations with the Church of Martel gave Cruxis automatic bid for sanctuary, like an estranged alien people sheltered by religion, and though the monarchy itself was closely linked to the Church, the wedge of Cruxis' position ceded a pseudo- separation of church and state. Ironically, the people of Cruxis were dubbed "holy beings."

The whole thing gave Kratos a headache. And what was Mithos doing with Cruxis now, during this open-ended state of civil conflict that it brought upon the people of Tethe'alla? Reconvening its energies toward… something else. Something suspicious, if Kratos could hazard a guess. Mithos had never been bolder than he was now, and he burned with a madness because Colette never succeeded in becoming Martel's vessel. And the Tower _had_ fallen, but the World Tree was dead. Truly, so much of the good was blemished by the bad.

And to top it off, it still wasn't raining.

Kratos ran his garnet eyes over bark and birch and tree canopy. It made sense, though – the weather, that is. What did the sky care for a dwarf? Wasn't subterra its antithesis? Didn't its wind never touch the halls of the underground? Kratos stared down at the casket in its grave. Dirk was being buried in Iselia, which the townspeople likely considered an honor since Dirk had never dwelled among them. Somehow, though, Kratos felt strongly the opposite. Perhaps this burial location wasn't a gift from the townspeople _to_ Lloyd but, rather, a gift to the townspeople _from_ Lloyd. Kratos speculated that the offer had perhaps been brandished like a double-edged sword by the mayor, and Lloyd, without needing subtlety to be spelled out for him, accepted it. The boy understood to tread lightly, appear grateful, and avoid disturbing waters that were best left undisturbed. No sense in making any more rifts with these people. But Kratos – and probably Lloyd, too – still thought that the dwarf would have wanted to be buried separately from those who exiled his son, just as he had lived separately.

Then again, Dirk wouldn't have wanted to be dead in the first place.

The longevity of Dwarf reckoned a lifespan longer by far. So, then, why was Dirk dead? It couldn't have been due to natural causes. Kratos suspected foul play. Furthermore, Noishe wasn't present. This whole funeral was superficial in the Seraph's eyes, nothing more than a cautious dance between two betrothed individuals who were not in love. It wasn't fair to Lloyd. And still no rain.

Glancing toward his son, Kratos upheld his muted expression. Lloyd's liquid brown eyes, deeply drained and sad, never met his. Instead he stared down in front of him, not at the casket but at the ground. He was orphaned once more, but he knew that neither Iselia nor Kratos could embrace him, and the pain of losing Dirk was quickly becoming a hollowed out anguish – more quickly than Lloyd felt Dirk was properly due, in fact. Maybe he was bone-weary from the long-suffering path that he'd trodden since that fateful day of the Oracle. Maybe the stigma that had been placed over his head from their Journey's shortcoming had taken more out of him than they'd thought. True, he had saved Colette – or barred her from her own decisions – but mana remained deficient in Sylvarant.

The rest of the ceremony proceeded mechanically. For humans, Kratos observed that there weren't a lot of tears. Some of them seemed more nervous than anything, while others were plainly and understandably uncomfortable. Oh, Colette's eyes were streaming, but Lloyd gave no words, just stood there somberly and endured, his lips set in a thin line. Dirk was a good man and a better father than Kratos could have ever hoped to be. These and other like sentiments were felt by more than just Kratos and didn't need to be expressed in words by Lloyd. When it was over, Kratos quietly paid his respects, spoke to no one, and left as he had come – and maybe his vanishing presence was noted, and maybe not. He had a lot to think about – too much – but he wasn't sure that his stay in Iselia hadn't already been too long.

Taking his leisure, he reached his destination well before the sun hit its zenith in the sky. It was a deserted building – rather, a tall house – on the southern outskirts of Iselia. Presumably, it was once a House of Salvation, but infrequent traffic shut it down. Iselia itself was a sparse country community, rural and simplistic, and there really just weren't enough travelers this plot of the world to warrant the operations of a House. So it was left for abandoned, its only remaining function serving as a wayfarer house for the occasional squatter. Regardless of its exploitation, it was not in a state of neglect. Drifters had counted it a blessing and had kept it serviceable, tidy, and homely, and Kratos would make use of it the way that others had before him.

* * *

It was two hours after sundown when the rains finally came. It was as if the floodgates had been pounded upon all day and, just when it felt like they'd never open, divine persistence had won at last. The skies unlocked a torrential downpour, like a startling springtime deluge and one unaccompanied by thunder or lightning. It was pure. Pure and painless. Probably the first thing that day that was. Kratos listened to the weather's pulse as it pummeled the roof of the House in slanted sheets of rainfall. He lay upon his back in the front room's clean but mismatched reupholstered couch that was the color of moss. His eyes looked jaded as they continued to skim over the tome that occupied his right hand. But he seemed at ease now that his starched overcoat had been discarded and he was comfortable in a loose, sleeved tunic as white as tonight's moon when it could be glimpsed in pale snatches through the rainstorm. His train of thought escaped to briefly wonder of Noishe and whether the creature was caught up in this when a knock sounded at the door. Kratos lifted his head from the pages that he had been reading and shot an inscrutable look toward the oat-colored front wall. With the lantern light, he had made no secret of his private invasion of the House. But on a night like tonight, he couldn't blame anyone their choice of refuge. Pulling himself to his feet, Kratos made his way across the room to the oaken door and pulled it open.

The last person that he expected to see was Lloyd. Yet there Lloyd was, blinking up at him from his hunched stance as he tried to ward off the rain with his shrug. He was soaked through. His shirt even _looked_ heavy as it swallowed up the water and stuck drenched to his skin; his _black_ shirt. Evidently, he hadn't changed from the funeral attire, nor was he wearing even a practical cloak to protect himself from the elements.

In one terse moment, Kratos and Lloyd studied each other. Then Kratos stepped aside with a tug of the door handle. "Come in" was all that he said.

Without hesitation, Lloyd obliged. His short, choppy brown hair was matted to his forehead any which way, and he shivered in spite of himself when the first wave of warmth struck his gooseflesh skin. Sopping, he stood, rainwater dripping from him onto the faded entrance mat. He said nothing.

Kratos had turned his back on him immediately and disappeared into the adjacent room where he mechanically drew hot water for a bath. His mind did not reel at his son's unexplained presence – not really – but he was sure that, out of all the things that Lloyd could be expected to do during the hours following his dad's funeral, trekking through this miserable squall to reach Kratos shouldn't have been at the top of the list. Not only that, but Kratos wasn't sure what was expected of him. He just slipped into autopilot.

When he reappeared, Lloyd hadn't budged from his spot at the door. The boy turned his eyes to Kratos, and Kratos couldn't help but notice how miserable he looked. Without further ado, the Seraph spoke, "You'll find a change of clothes on the stool. Help yourself." And then the man made himself turn away from the wretched image of his son as he stood there with plaintive eyes and stooped shoulders.

Lloyd gave Kratos' back a long look. Then he, too, walked away without a word and disappeared from the room.

* * *

The bathwater was hot enough to touch the air to steam, and once Lloyd relaxed his aching body into it, he felt the knots evaporate from his muscles – knots that he didn't even know he had. Resting his shoulders against smooth enamel, he relished the heat and solace and, most of all, _cleanness_. Dirk was six feet under now, and there wasn't much to keep that thought from festering behind Lloyd's every waking vision. But the powerful urge to scrub himself clean of it, to mop every inch of himself and drown his skin in a homemade baptism, was overbearing. Except that he was too exhausted to do it. So he sat and unwound and watched trickling rivulets of sweat and vapor run down his arms and chest, like little beads of holiness.

Kratos, meanwhile, reassumed his position on the couch – though, granted, he couldn't concentrate as before. His son was in the next room, and he was hurting, and knowing that disoriented him. But so did Lloyd's outward calm. It was confusing. Preferable to any version of chaos, but confusing nonetheless. After all, didn't Kratos cry when Anna had died? Didn't he weep and grieve, roar and shed yet more bitter tears when he had lost his family in one fell swoop? Wasn't it just the human thing to do? Shifting restlessly, Kratos dropped the book to his chest and took a deep breath, filling his lungs to near bursting just so that he could recall a little of what that pain had felt like. Not to much avail.

When Lloyd had been in the bath for almost an hour – it was so quiet – Kratos rose from the couch and walked to the stove.

* * *

Eventually, Lloyd emerged, a quiet shape bare from the waist up and wearing the gray slacks left for him by Kratos. He smelled cooking and managed to separate the fragrances of onion, pepper, and lemon by the time he reached the counter.

Kratos paused in his efforts and got his first good look at Lloyd all day. The boy had more color in his face now. A towel hung limply around his shoulders, damp, and he stood with more readiness than before. Gone were the slouched shoulders. His eyes were distinctly usual and confronting. He was evenly toned, competent. Kratos knew then that he hadn't faltered in his training, even after everything. The slacks fit him okay, despite their length. Lloyd had no choice but to tread on them because of his height difference from Kratos, but they hung at his waist suitably enough.

Lloyd's eyes were touched to warm honey in the lantern light, and, once again, even though he was still young, he reminded Kratos of Anna. He focused those eyes on Kratos. "Thank you," he said. For the clothing? For sanctuary? He did not specify. But Kratos responded with a short nod, somehow understanding that Lloyd's two-word expression of gratitude encompassed everything, from showing up at Dirk's funeral – how had he known about it, anyway? – to sticking close to Iselia for the night.

It wasn't long before Lloyd was situated at the House's sole table with a bowl of cream of asparagus soup in front of him. It was the first thing that he'd eaten all day, and he tore into it with ravenous abandon. Kratos stood just aside, a silent sentinel watching his son. It was a slow-rippling revelation, like a trace motion breathing across a deep vernal pond, but Kratos realized that Lloyd was going to be alright. In fact, he already was. Lloyd was being _emphatically_ okay. Odd it may be, but this was all Lloyd had decided he needed. The boy didn't cry – _wouldn't_, Kratos had deduced after a while – even though Dirk's death was a sorrow that was difficult with which to come to grips. He wouldn't rail against his misfortune, like something battered and pathetic and utterly contemptible. Though more human of a response – and, purely for that reason alone, more satisfying – it wouldn't be easy to empathize with that sort of behavior. But that wasn't why Lloyd was acting contrary to these very human tendencies. Kratos believed that Lloyd was a self-perpetuating individual. Simply put, he didn't need to suffer under any more grief after the aborted Journey of Regeneration. No, what Lloyd needed was to keep his head above the water. He needed a return to normalcy. And, so, normal he acted. Kratos stood by at the ready, prepared for the breakdown that he realized wouldn't come. He wouldn't actually know what to do if it did, but that was his job, wasn't it? As a relative? As Lloyd's… father? The boy was made of sterner stuff than at first taken for. Kratos wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but today it was just… odd. Surreal.

But life goes on.

* * *

Just as Lloyd came, he left. Kratos offered to outfit him against the weather, but Lloyd politely declined, saying that he wanted to feel the rain. Dressed in his black attire, now dry and crisp with fireside heat, Lloyd stood before the Seraph. Kratos rigorously studied him, the burnished chocolate brown hair, the faint crease of exhaustion at his brow, the color in and around his eyes, the upright shoulders and sturdy legs. Lloyd was going to come out of this, maybe unscathed to all those who couldn't read into him like a book. There were no hugs or grins, no claps on the back or bubbling thanks, but Kratos knew that it was well with the two of them, and as Lloyd was swallowed by the stormy, abysmal night, Kratos clutched that unspoken appreciation and pulled it deep inside of himself where it could flourish and amplify and supply him with a goodness to carry him onwards.

If he only knew that this was the last time he would see Lloyd in Iselia for years to come.


	3. Chapter 3

"—be the first thing that he'd see."

**Look away.**

"—colors would match theirs, and—"

**No color. No life. Just gray. Pale.**

"—oyd?"

**Face up, kissing the air. Face up, kissing the air one last time.**

"—Lloyd, are you listening?"

"Huh?"

Lloyd Irving turned his gentle, cocoa-colored irises to Colette as she paused in her monologue to eye him askance. They had been wrapping up the final touches for Genis' homecoming celebration, and Colette was all flourishes, streamers, and twitters. But the confections, myriad golds, and planned festivities were lost on him. All morning long, Lloyd had dutifully catered to her every ensemble and color scheme in perfect docility, playing the martyr because he knew that she knew the matter of all these things. And, indeed, his home had been transformed into a glorified jubilation, complete with its own sweeping parlor banner, stair banister interlaced with creeping buttercups, and table soon to be visited by Colette's famous cookies. But, quite by chance, he had dropped a ribbon on the black walnut floor. And it took a lot for him to look away from the spot, for it was where he had found Dirk's body after his rather mysterious death. Lloyd could trace the invisible outline with his eyes; Dirk's supine body, arm fallen just so, fingers bended, legs spread loose… fallen without a strain. Like neatly pressed cloth, no crumples or wrinkles. No sign of a fight either except that he had landed on his _back_, and that was important to Lloyd for some reason.

"Are you alright?"

Lloyd stooped to snatch up the ribbon before appeasing Colette with a nod. "Yeah. Of course. Just spaced out for a minute."

The small girl with the impossibly blue eyes chewed on her lower lip before venturing further. "Are you sure?" She couldn't miss the dazed quality of his eyes. He was blind when they were like that, focusing instead on some inner gripe or turmoil. She didn't like it. They were the same eyes through which he had gazed at Dirk's funeral.

The boy's face, sunlit and alluring, broke into an easy grin as he regarded his golden-haired friend. "I'm fine, you dork," he teased, as he stepped toward her. Leaning down, his soft brown locks fell in disarray to frame eyes gleaming with mirth. In a single, familiar gesture, Lloyd flicked Colette's forehead. The motion was tempered with affection, light as a feather in a halcyon breeze. "Don't worry about me. I'm just glad that we're finished." Unceremoniously, Lloyd stretched, as if that signaled the end of that. "Even I'd wanna go off to the Academy just for the chance to come home to a set-up like this."

Colette smiled delightedly at his warm praise. Whatever ghost had usurped his awareness, it was gone now. "We really did work hard. I hope that he likes it," she said, with hands clasped, almost as if she were pleading.

"If I know Genis, he will. Everything is perfect, Colette," he insisted with eyes full of tenderness and never leaving hers. "Now let's get you home so that you can work on those cookies of yours," he suggested, offering his arm in a manner so courtly that it made Colette giggle – which he was more or less going for. "Tomorrow will be here before you know it." Again, he grinned. He couldn't help himself. Genis was his best friend, and he'd spent the last chunk of his life attending Palmacosta Academy. Lloyd couldn't wait to see him again.

To Raine and Lloyd, the acceptance letter from one Palmacosta Academy had been considered Genis' personal segue into a normal life. The day that it had arrived in the mail, as neat and daunting a packet as any, was the day that, in all likelihood, Genis' childhood was spared. The rest of them may still be picking up the pieces left after the Journey, dusting them off, and refitting them into some kind of prelude to the rest of their lives, but at least Genis had been saved. He'd been thrown the proverbial rope. He'd been handed a diamond-studded lifeline, and he would be happy and settled into his new life by the year's end. Genis was fortunate.

The only problem that Raine had with the entire situation was that Genis believed himself to be rescued by his impeccable academic record, that it alone had snagged him his admittance into the Academy. And, truly, it _should_ be that way. However, Raine, although she could never disagree with her brother's integrity and genius when it came to being book smart, suspected that he was accepted for being who – or, rather, _what_ – he was. That he was one of the nine Journeyers would never change. But, even though they had failed, he was still a celebrity in the eyes of an academy. Enroll Genis and they'd have their very own tourist attraction. It wasn't fair, but it was the way that life worked, and Raine was brought up in mistrust so she couldn't help but think it. But Genis would be home tomorrow for his break, and they'd all get to hear stories firsthand about how well he was being treated.

With Colette on his arm, Lloyd marched them out of the house and under the forest canopy. The sun fell in slanted beams of living glitter, touching Colette's hair to the flaxen color of wheat fields in summer. Lloyd thought that he saw tiny sparkles at her cheeks, and her eyes, when they met his again, smiled beatifically. With a contented sigh, he faced forward and walked down the same path that he'd walked countless times to reach Iselia. The woods were quiet today, except for the song of a lark somewhere at their left and the faint rustling of boughs as their dappled leaves scratched together in the breeze. The trees emanated that deep, soft serenity that was like a soothing balm. All was perfect. All was calm.

They rounded a familiar bend, when—

"Stop where you are!"

Yanking Colette to a stop, Lloyd blinked in sluggish surprise.

There, about four yards ahead of them, stood a man bearing a sword. He was uniformed in steely gray, in what looked like wool to Lloyd.

**He must be overheated,** Lloyd found himself randomly thinking. Perturbed brown eyes rove over Colette before returning to their confronter. "Who're you?"

"I am Halle," the man answered sharply, his voice like grinding stones. From beneath his pith helmet, his eyes broadcast trouble in a light-colored hue. Then his body jerked in sudden rigidity. "A retainer." Though he answered Lloyd's question, his face hardened even more.

"A retainer to what?" Lloyd puzzled aloud. His arms had fallen to his sides, surreptitiously caressing twin hilts.

Halle outstretched one arm, his blade pointing dead at Lloyd, as a crow flies. "Lloyd Aurion," he began, and Lloyd started at the name. Nobody called him that, except— "You are coming with me. I am to be your escort."

Lloyd's eyes narrowed into a rust-colored glare that screamed defiance. He felt his arms tense, muscles knotting in poised readiness. "An escort to where?" This question was essentially the same as the last one.

"To my master." The simple, maddening, ambiguous reply.

Breathing in and back out again, slowly, Lloyd inclined his head. A slithering, ringing sound, somehow reminiscent of dampened cutlery, came from somewhere on his body. It was muted and metallic and very to the point, and, suddenly, it divulged into a second dangerous reverberation. Creeping from unseen sheathes, Lloyd's swords were drawn. His body shifted in front of Colette, taut as a bow string, and the taste of peril was in his mouth. "What if I wanna stay right here?" Lloyd's voice was grated iron. Something had definitely been switched on in his demeanor.

"You mistake us," Halle answered. Before Lloyd could question the "us," four like soldiers emerged from the foliage of the flowering shrubs around him. Halle's penetrating eyes burned into Lloyd's. "It isn't a request."

There was a pregnant pause as Lloyd examined the situation. Colette remained at his back, and Lloyd could feel the terror seeping from her in waves. She was a good girl, though, and kept quiet. "Whatever qualm that you think you have with me," Lloyd shook his head, beseeching reason over violence. "It's over now." There was strength in his voice, a strength that quite possibly belied his secret regret. "Nobody wanted what happened. Not even me. If there was a way to fix everything, we'd do it. _I'd_ do it. Trust me when I say that we never meant to doom this world."

Another pause as the five soldiers shared glances. And then Halle barked laughter. "You wear your ignorance brazenly, boy. Do you think that we care about Sylvarant?" A scattering of laughter echoed from the other men. Halle began to walk forward.

"Stay back," Lloyd growled, pressing up against Colette as he distributed more weight to his back leg. His swords rose to form an ominous X-shaped ward.

The other men started moving too, closing in.

"Lloyd Aurion—" Halle began again.

"Stop calling me that!"

"—you are coming with us."

"Leave us alone, please!" Cried Colette.

"—Come peacefully. We are only meant to serve as your escort."

Lloyd abruptly spun on Colette. "Run, Colette, go." His instructions were coming in frantic bursts now. They indicated that there was something he was not telling her. "Run home. Tell them what happened. Tell them—"

_CLANG!_

Colette flinched away, and in the instant that she opened her eyes she saw Lloyd's hunched figure, stooping under the pressure of blades against blades. He was holding them off, transforming himself and his swords into a barrier separating her from them. She saw the sudden flood of anger as Lloyd ground his teeth, braced himself, and shouted a furious "Demon Fang!" before the men were viciously thrown back by some half-visible recoil of mana.

"Go, Colette! _Now!_" Lloyd yelled, tension paramount.

"But I—"

_"__Run!"_

Another interruption of clashing steel.

A small gasp from Lloyd.

Another laugh from Halle, even as he was pitched backward again. Lloyd was certainly putting up a fight. "It isn't the girl that we need, Lloyd Aurion. We'll not lay a finger on your failed Chosen."

There came a flurry of movement, when all five men launched themselves at once, and Colette lost her bearing of Lloyd. She heard the sound of slicing leather. She caught the injured strains of a man's cry, and there was a flash of indignant expression from one of the attackers, but then Lloyd was overwhelmed. Even so, he fought valiantly, swords splicing air molecules and skin alike, and blood began to texture the dirt path, blossoming like a red rose with its petals wilting and falling as it spread.

_Whose_ blood, Colette did not know.

She wasn't meant to see this.

She turned on her heel and _ran_, but she could not shut out the keening howls and the wrestling of adept bodies on the red earth and the sound of bone pounding on soft flesh.

"Let it be known, girl!" she heard Halle shouting after her.

"Let it be known! I am Halle, retainer to Cruxis, and Lloyd belongs to _him_ now!"


	4. Chapter 4

"Unngh," came the barely audible moan as Lloyd was unceremoniously dumped in a battered heap upon the floor. He heard the rattle of iron swinging into place, then all went blessedly quiet. Upon slitting open an eye, the interlock of double-ribbed round and flat bars filled his vision in a vertical network of confinement. He moaned again and closed his eye. It was rapidly swelling shut anyway and stung worse the more he regained consciousness. Sore from head to toe, Lloyd turned over on all fours and coughed, spitting out the dirt of bodily havoc before collapsing again and curling in on himself. He just needed a few minutes, he told himself, just a few minutes to unclench his fists and stretch his pulled calf muscle and lick his dusty, bleeding lips. **It'd help if I could stop feeling my head, too.** He grimaced.

All in all, he'd given them a good romp. He remembered jamming his hilt into someone's – and he hoped that it was Halle's – ribs… and punching another's helmet so hard that his glove ripped when his wrist caught on it as the man dropped to his knees to shield his maimed face… and stabbing into a chest, somewhere _near_ the heart – or maybe it had been closer to the left shoulder… and kicking and spurring like a devil, accompanied only by his demands of mana as he directed Sword Rains and Beasts from within the eye of the hurricane.

But he had been outnumbered from the start, and he knew it, and even if Kratos had been the best teacher in the world to him during the Journey of World Regeneration Lloyd didn't know how to beat quantity with quality. His so-called escorts had delivered their own fierce blows – probably mad that he'd chosen the path of resistance – and specifically one to the back of his head. Lloyd hadn't been cognizant of much after that. The passage of time had twisted and faded into a buzzing darkness. All he had known were flashes of colors against his eyelids, like small, beating wings of primitive discernment.

Now, he roused himself to the aftermath. And here he was… Wherever here was. The boy carefully twitched his shoulders, testing them out against the bruises and beatings. Then he opened his dark eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position, both legs sprawled motionlessly before him as he huddled over a spot on the floor. It was a cold, whitewashed floor. Giving it a few raps with purplish knuckles, Lloyd found that it was not hollow but solid all the way through. "Concrete," he muttered. He knew what that meant. Little hope for escape. Pulling off the remains of one of his gauntlets, Lloyd lifted his head to survey his surroundings.

It was too small for a room, so Lloyd assumed that it was a cell. If he was still enough, he could hear a distant droning noise, as if from a large vacuum. Rising painfully to his feet, he paced the perimeter of the square-shaped keep, mindlessly brushing against the bare, asphalt walls in smooth strokes with his fingers. The walls and floor were so cold, but it was a well-insulated place. He came to wrap his hands around the imprisoning bars that made the only door and give them a few firm tugs. The muscles in his arms spasmed beneath flowering bruises. The cell door smelled oily and antiquated, but it didn't budge. In a last, desperate conjecture, he ran his hands over his person, thinking that if he had his swords he could Sonic Thrust his way out of here. But he found that his weapons had been confiscated.

"Perfect," he mumbled in immaculate sardonicism. Leaning his back heavily against the wall, Lloyd slid down until he was sitting once more. His clothes were torn and dirtied to a raw sienna instead of red. His hair was gritty with earth and blood that formed a coagulated grime and fell over his swollen eyes so that he rubbed them until he really couldn't see anymore.

"Just perfect."

* * *

  
Colette ran like Lloyd's life depended on it. She ran like a wild thing, with her dress snagging on milk thistle and thorns and her hair fanning out in a curtain behind her like sunshine in haste. She scratched her legs on tayberry brambles, but she never slowed down. The sounds of Lloyd's battle had, like some lethal, colorless gas that may have already robbed him of his life, all but dissolved into the air as she exited from beneath the ceiling of the forest. She was a mere hop, skip, and a jump away from Iselia. She didn't have time for tears. No, she was a good, strong girl, just like Lloyd always told her she was. She had to get help. She had to tell them what happened. He had asked her to. He had told her to run, and run she had. Her sky blue eyes reflected distress and the path ahead, and as she came careening into town she lost her footing and took a tumble on the sun-kissed road.

"Help!" She cried out, picking herself up again and veering unsteadily toward her home at an even faster pace, if at all possible. "Please, help! Somebody help!" It was a wonder that she didn't bang the door off its hinges when she fell into the parlor.

"Colette!" Frank jumped up from the table in reflexive bewilderment, just as Raine and Phaidra simultaneously appeared at the kitchen doorway as if one person.

"Help him! They've got him! They—They—" Colette charged at them, wobbling, dangerously unbalanced.

"Calm down, calm down," Frank caught up Colette in a heartbeat, arresting her bizarre progress at his chest and immediately hugging her to him so that she could identify something – _anything_ – and wake from the nightmare that he saw in her cobalt eyes.

Colette, in turn, clutched him and held on, shaking as though she were a naked branch being tossed hither and thither by the wind.

Frank cupped her head and then began to move his less-than-steady fingers, teasing the sprout shoots from her hair. No matter what it was that she was sputtering about, if it had frightened his daughter this profoundly it was enough to unnerve him as well, for Colette wasn't one for theatrics. "We can't hear you if you don't catch your breath," he murmured encouragingly. This brought a single discordant flail and a choked articulation that they didn't understand from her. Frank's eyes were wide and spooked as he shot an incredulous look at Raine. His fingers continued in their furtive motions to disentangle Colette's hair. "Who is—"

"They've got Lloyd!" She wailed, before bursting into tears.

An unsettling silence descended upon the adults in the room while Colette's body convulsed in a paroxysm of grief. Frank held her loosely in his arms now. His dumbfounded eyes hadn't yet left Raine, as if she magically knew what this was about.

Raine stepped up to the plate.

"Colette, _who_ has got Lloyd?" Her tone was shrewd but friendly, just the way that Colette had heard it a thousand times in the classroom when she persuaded her students to mull over a contrariwise rumor that had not yet been credited as universal fact. It was the tone of great debate, of giving and taking and swapping knowledge like a bounty throughout the classroom. It was used when Raine procured educated opinion instead of recitation from her students and nobody was wrong. Nobody was ever "wrong."

Colette couldn't be wrong. Colette had something to say – Lloyd told her to – and she wasn't going to be wrong.

"Cruxis," she whispered – and watched as Raine's pale, flawless face waned like a sickle moon at harvest-time.

* * *

"Was he alone?"

"No, my lord. There was the Chosen, my lord."

"… How dare you."

"… My lord?"

"How _dare_ you refer to her as such in my presence."

"Your forgiveness, my lord…!"

"She is no Chosen of mine! If you understand nothing else, understand this! She is less than cattle! Less than cattle led to the slaughter!"

"Yes, my lord! Your forgiveness, my lord!"

"…"

"… Your forgiveness, my lord."

"Was the name of Cruxis uplifted?"

"Yes, my lord."

"This is satisfactory."

"My lord."

"Bring him to me. I want to speak with him."

"Yes, my lord."

* * *

  
When the door clattered open at last, Lloyd had already been stewing in enmity for hours. His temperament was worse than moderate. He'd been sitting against the wall in a sulk long enough for his body to stiffen into that dull aching condition that proceeds any particularly nasty scuffle. Now he didn't want to move at all. He just sat frozen, his appearance now enhanced by two admirable black eyes. Even his right arm was slightly swollen. The blood had encrusted itself to his broken skin, a fine natural healing mechanism if he'd ever seen one. And his side, just where his ribs were – or where he _hoped_ they still were – was tender and moist.

But nobody came for him. Nobody even watered him or fed him like a stabled animal.

Treated this way, he simmered in an infuriated silence. It was no wonder that, during his captivity, he'd spent most of the time being mad instead of afraid. It was no wonder that he was in a bad mood when they finally came for him.

"Get up with you. Time to go."

Lloyd snorted, eyes closed, either because he didn't want to open them or couldn't.

"Get up, I said."

With a groan, Lloyd rolled his head back and forth against the wall and peered out at the two guardsmen. "What if I wanna stay right here?" He uttered. The inside of his mouth felt like it was stuffed with ash.

There came an exasperated sigh after Lloyd recited that line.

"Grab his left side. I'll take his right."

Lloyd cringed as he felt himself roughly manhandled to his feet. He delicately extended his legs and found the floor with his boots.

"Good boy. See, we've no want to hurt you. So keep with cooperating, will you? It's time to go."

Opening his eyes beyond just a crack, Lloyd didn't recognize the two faces that he found close to his. They were ashen in the dim lighting that shone beyond the cell, and he thought that he saw a puckered scar running down the length of one of them, from the corner of his eye to the line of his jaw. Straightening his back was an agony that Lloyd had to fulfill. "Where'm I going?" he questioned of his captors.

"You've been summoned."

"Uh-huh," Lloyd asserted in a drawl that intoned a very deliberate-sounding tolerance, as if he were addressing two complete imbeciles. "And what exactly does that mean?"

The two faces glanced at each other.

He obviously wasn't getting it.

"It _means_ that Lord Yggdrasill wants to see you."

Lloyd's eyes glinted perceptibly as they suddenly and acutely widened into full ochre. Those eyes were flooded with memory and alertness, and he was ready at once, even as he was half-dragged down the long, stale-aired corridor and into another.

Yggdrasill. Lloyd wanted to suppose that the Journey had ended in a stalemate between themselves and Cruxis, since neither side seemed to have gotten what it wanted. But this was Cruxis – a well-endowed, well-provisioned organization. Somehow it had all been too good to be true when Yggdrasill stayed his omnipotent hand and backed off, not with a whimper, just in time for them to be lured back into their own lives. They had started over with new insecurities, and they had ironed out their psyches to see just what they had of who they were when their lives were in shambles. During all that, Lloyd had filed away Cruxis' silence in the back of his mind.

Probably for something like this.

Now, as he entered a great hall with a velvet carpet and stairs suspended upright by exorbitant buttresses, Lloyd saw him. There, smug to the teeth, seated with legs crossed and elbow propped upon the arm of his throne, with his smirk somehow mirrored by his eyes, was Mithos Yggdrasill.

"The son Aurion," Mithos boomed, as if speaking a pronouncement. "I've been waiting for you."


	5. Chapter 5

The low-frequency purr overwhelmed the senses – angelic or not. It thrummed through a syncopated cadence, pulsating like something bleeding, for it was the pulse of Derris-Kharlan as engineered by one man. The _artificial_ pulse of Derris-Kharlan, _artificially_ engineered by one seraph, that is. Eyes of tarnished sanguine never blinked as they tirelessly scanned the on-screen motif. Every third breedle – because every fifth was a stretch, and every other was redundant – fetched chapter and verse of data, and the abbreviated version scrolled the motif with a display of electronic dossiers. It wasn't so bad, Kratos had decided, once he'd gotten used to it – and thank Martel for that because he was only one person… and the only sentient one on the comet, at that. But it was all pretty well automated. The statistical summary was all that he really needed to mind because there was a math to it, which required a method from him, which made it a repetitious, mechanical thing that he had to analyze over and over again. But that was after every third breedle. Everything else moved to archives for future reports that he hoped he would never have to retrieve. All in all, it was similar to the mainframe used in the human ranches. The ranch machines had been the basis for it, the first generation parents. But rebuild that apparatus _into_ Derris-Kharlan, refine it with current Tethe'allan technology, have Mithos oversee his own special alterations, and then ship Kratos Aurion, Mithos' right hand, to Derris-Kharlan so that he can tweak and redefine the thing as he wills, in such a way that it makes sense to him since _he_ is going to be the one operating it. With the help of lackeys on the side. The venture wasn't slapdash by any means. It'd been in progress for a long time. It took Mithos' ambition and careful deliberation before it was pronounced ripe and Kratos was given his orders to return to the comet and manage it.

Cruxis had withdrawn from Derris-Kharlan, true. But it had never _abandoned_ it.

Derris-Kharlan was unstable, especially after the Tower of Salvation fell. It was luck that it wasn't lost with it. How much luck, though? To answer this, one must first think of the Tower as something that connected Derris-Kharlan to both Sylvarant and Tethe'alla. Ultimately, that would mean it connected Sylvarant and Tethe'alla to each other. Next, imagine geometric lines of sight and "poles" and that the symmetry of the Tower created poles of mana – north and south or east and west. Then, consider the influence that poles of mana would play in the location of Derris-Kharlan at any given point, especially if one world was superior to the other because mana was polar, pulling in a dominant flow toward one direction over the other. Imagine, then, that said Tower collapsed. Imagine that line of flow severed. What would that do to Derris-Kharlan's trajectory?

Before, Derris-Kharlan was more or less suspended in position, held in place by the poles, even if hovering predominantly toward Tethe'alla over time. But the collapse of the Tower compromised a thousand things, not the least of which was Derris-Kharlan's pathway. Gravitation is the natural phenomenon of attraction between physical objects with mass or energy. Mana is energy; thus, Tethe'alla had a bigger gravity, so to speak, than Sylvarant. The comet drifted away from Sylvarant completely, attracted to Tethe'alla's mana. It was a game of planetary tug-of-war, with Tethe'alla prospering little by little, and Cruxis jumped from Derris-Kharlan to Tethe'alla at the crux of the slingshot. That was the simplified breakdown of the science – or luck – into hypothetical deductions.

Derris-Kharlan was important, however – at least in Mithos' lawless mind. It was rich with over four thousand years of history. It was Cruxis' base. But, way before that, it was his terrestrial ancestor, the pinnacle of virtue, the first home of the elves. Besides, his sister was there, and there she would stay. Mithos would see her on neither Tethe'alla nor Sylvarant until her dream had been fulfilled. No, Derris-Kharlan had a future yet, and Mithos wouldn't be the one to forfeit it.

It took more than just machines to maneuver a comet. Kratos believed that Derris-Kharlan had been a much bigger world once, long ago, but it was difficult enough as it was now. As long as the screen scrolled what it was supposed to scroll and the signals meant what they were supposed to mean, the short-term of it all was alright to Kratos. There wasn't a vast repository of mana anymore from which he could manufacture a state of equilibrium for such a giant body. But it wasn't crashing into Tethe'alla. And it wasn't launching toward the sun. Even without the screen, Kratos could tell that much. It was a delicate course to steer, with bodies of large, glowing orbs competing to drag the comet every which way and an unpredictable mana flux that fought to steal it too, but that's why Kratos was there. The right hand of Cruxis.

Location was only one part of his job here.

Pushing his upper body from the panel over which he'd been leaning, the seraph paused to pore over the details one last time before turning his back on the machine and its computations. The vitals were good. There was nothing exceptional about the readings and no need to augment a hair. Derris-Kharlan was riding the currents. To navigate a living comet was to navigate a living comet, and it was just as unbelievable as the existence of the comet itself. And that was that.

Kratos left the chamber, but he couldn't escape the deep, rhythmic humming. It came from everywhere on the comet, like a pacemaker. Residing there for so long made it easy for him to ignore it. Oh, he always heard it, but he didn't _listen_ to it. Beyond it was silence, for Derris-Kharlan was very desolate now. Even the angelic attendants who lived there with him made no noise. They weren't for small talk.

Lacking even an expression on his face, Kratos exited the architectural dome. Beneath a purple sky, he wound his way across a suspended walkway. There was no breeze to tangle the sweep of soft auburn over his left eye. Weather was another funny thing here. It was almost non-existent. In fact, weather was distinctly non-existent on a good day. It all depended on the comet's movements through space. As long as Derris-Kharlan was doing what Kratos wanted it to do, namely resting still or holding position, there wasn't much weather to be had. Kratos had also found that a comet which didn't shoot through space like a Black Bat out of Niflheim tended to have a rotation all its own. He hadn't established to what axis the rock of Derris-Kharlan turned itself – it changed from day to day and whenever they moved – but it created a faint wind when it spun all alone, anchored against its natural tendencies by unseen forces of mana. Its spinning created an imitation gravity which wasn't of much help to anyone – he was a seraph and those with him here were angelic beings. But, whichever way the comet wanted to behave, no wind was a good sign to Kratos.

"Did we hold that last channel?"

"Yes, Lord Aurion."

Kratos avoided looking directly at the deadpan face of the angel that he had hailed. "Was there any correspondence?"

"No, Lord Aurion." No inflection at all.

Kratos absorbed what that meant. He nodded to himself, turned away, and backtracked from whence he came. He had work to do.

* * *

"Yggdrasill," Lloyd spat, with venom all too prevalent in his voice. Positioned in the center of the private hall and holding his back uncomfortably straight, Lloyd felt vulnerable. He was sullen, especially shaky, and he couldn't feel his legs, but he had answered his summons. Both cell guards stood at attention no more than two handspans behind him. He wasn't sure if they were there for the purpose of aid or for threat.

Standing there dumbly, it was easy for Lloyd to notice that Mithos had a flair for the elaborate. The entryway of the hall was arcaded by columns sculpted from alabaster stone. Even the carpet beneath Lloyd's feet seemed a precisely trimmed river of lavender silk, leading directly to the steps where, upon climbing, sat the object of Lloyd's wrath. The swordsman didn't let himself gawk, but he could see enough from his spot in the hall to recognize affluence. In context with the rest of the place, however, the ceiling was unremarkable. It was no more than a bare, concave depression. There were also no tapestries hanging from any of the walls, surprisingly enough.

"He is _Lord_ Ygg—" a guardsman started, before Mithos raised his arm in an unmistakable command of silence.

"Leave us," Mithos ordered. His voice was no-nonsense and razor-sharp.

A thick silence followed as the two helmeted men filed from the room like lemmings, leaving Lloyd with their leader, who was – let it be mentioned – fringed by four winged beings just beyond the dais.

"Where am I?" Lloyd snapped, before the last man disappeared through the doorway. His eyes were guarded orbs of copper.

Mithos took unhurriedly to his feet. Eyes of liquid color regarded Lloyd as though examining a stray dog. It had, after all, been quite a while since the Journey. But whatever he'd envisioned for his latest meeting with Lloyd he did not let on. Instead, he smiled a perfect smile that didn't show his teeth. With an ostentatious sweep of his arm to show off the grandeur of the place, he replied, "The Cruxis Centrum at Tethe'alla, Lloyd." He saw Lloyd's facial double-take, and his smile loftily widened.

"At… Tethe'alla," Lloyd echoed weakly, disjointedly. The fire seemed to drain out of him, but it wasn't because he was so far from home – though being outside Sylvarant came as a particular shock. Still, that shock was nothing compared to the ill feeling that was curdling in his stomach. It wasn't a question, but Mithos heard the inquiry in his voice.

"At Tethe'alla," he confirmed, his smile growing into one of glorious forbearance. "What, you hadn't heard?"

Lloyd suddenly felt cold. Even if he had blanched, his face couldn't have been any more black and white than it already was with the charcoal bruising around his eyes. The boy found that he was entering into something that he couldn't comprehend. It wasn't merely that he had been taken captive to awaken in the heart of Cruxis territory. What made his blood freeze over was the suggestion that this Cruxis territory was on Tethe'allan soil. Wasn't Mithos supposed to play his games from the far-off comet of Derris-Kharlan? Lloyd's ringed, bewildered eyes were fastened on Mithos as alarm dawned over him. This wasn't like the human ranches in Sylvarant. There was a much bigger implication here. He searched the half-elf's cool, placid eyes and knew that Mithos wasn't bluffing.

"Had you really thought that the consequences were beyond my control?" Mithos sounded so sure of himself as he spoke. He began to descend the stairs, slowly. With each drop, the white of his overgarment fluttered around his waist like a glaze of falling snow. "I never lose the war, Lloyd."

In a dazed acknowledgment, Lloyd spared a look at the four angelic beings behind Mithos. Their stillness and leaden faces could have given them away even before their wings did. Cruxis had stopped hiding on Derris-Kharlan, and its membership was here – _all_ of them, _here_? Without realizing that he was doing so, Lloyd's hands drifted to touch his waist before remembering that his blades were not there.

If any Cruxis-related rumors had been circulating across Sylvarant – and, truthfully, Lloyd wasn't sure if they were – it was small wonder that none had reached the backwater village of Iselia. World Regeneration group or not, in failure or success, Iselia was a way off the beaten path for ordinary word of mouth passage, with exception to the stories brought by traveling tradesmen who lodged at the House of Salvation. But when the House closed down, Iselia was left in the dark, through no fault of its own. It was geographically challenged, plain and simple. But, after everything, Sylvarant knew that Tethe'alla existed. And Sylvarant knew who Cruxis was.

"You… You…" Lloyd stammered, light-headed. He wasn't sure what the word was that he wanted to use. "You're… _wed_… to Tethe'alla?" he lamely finished.

It was the wrong word to use. He knew it even as it fell from his lips. Like a sixth sense, Lloyd always knew when his sentences didn't come out sounding right. For half a moment, he expected Mithos to laugh at him the way that Genis always did in response to Lloyd's blunders of vocabulary. But the seraph gave him a frigid look instead. "Absolutely not," Mithos clipped. "It isn't a union insofar—"

"You're invading, then?" Lloyd blurted out, cutting him off.

Mithos narrowed his fine eyes at the interruption, pausing a moment on the stairs. "They do not construe it as such."

"I'm not asking them what they think it is. I'm asking you," Lloyd countered, shock giving way to aggressiveness. "Is this an invasion?"

He was answered with a tartly amused chuckle as Mithos was all serenity once again. "This is a visit, Lloyd. Curb your inventions. You are too excitable," he chastised lightly, as he descended the last few steps. "Meltokio knows that we are here. They've been nothing less than hospitable," he added, as if to reassure the boy.

"But do they know _what_ you—"

"You have questions," Mithos smoothly trod Lloyd's challenges underfoot, like a high tide over shore. He was self-possessed and as slippery as an eel when he wanted to be. Lloyd knew that. Just in the way that Mithos talked, it was apparent. The seraph approached Lloyd, hands loose at his sides. "Be that as it may, it isn't why you're here now."

Lloyd watched as the leader of Cruxis stopped just opposite him.

"My sympathies. I hadn't recognized that you were so damaged," Mithos suddenly said, like it wasn't at all a change of topic.

Lloyd didn't know what had made him flinch – the pain in his arm as he unthinkingly flexed injured tendons when Mithos drew close or the radical awareness, in general, that Mithos was close. Lloyd could see the ultimatum in his cunning eyes. The boy clenched his hands and stifled his torrent of accusations.

"You have something that I want. That's why you're here."

"Really?" Lloyd couldn't help but be snide. "And what would that be?"

"Your Exsphere."

"…_What?_"

"The Exsphere, Lloyd, on your left hand."

In a jarring, spastic motion, Lloyd covered his exposed hand where not even the shredding of his gauntlet remained after his time spent in the cell. "I heard you the first time!" Lloyd retorted in a clamor of vehemence. "But why do you want it?"

"I'm under no binding obligation to explain my actions to you."

"Well, the answer is no! You can't have it!"

The unconcern in Mithos' expression spoke volumes, if Lloyd could only guess. "I think otherwise."

"It was my mother's!"

"I know. That makes it mine first, doesn't it?"

"She gave it to me!" Lloyd heatedly argued.

"And I gave it to her." So nonchalantly spoken.

"It's all that I have left of her." He gingerly stepped backward.

"I don't disagree."

A pause, then.

"You can't have it, Yggdrasill," Lloyd uttered in less drastic tones.

"I am _Lord_ Yggdrasill," he shot back, icily. "And you may have my word that you will be returned to Iselia in the moment that you relinquish it to me."

Lloyd was silent.

"You can be with your friends again."

He was silent still.

"You can go home."

Lloyd stared dolefully down at his Exsphere. He was at the mercy of this beast, and either path was bittersweet, but he'd be a hypocrite if he gave up. Dwarven Vow #7. Yes, he was going to do this his way – the _right_ way. It wasn't even a choice. It wasn't even something that he had to think about. He would not give in to the demands of the adversary. The translucent blue of the Exsphere caught his eyes as they hardened in decision. "She gave it to me, and it is mine." His voice was quiet, cheerless, and infected with a savage conviction. It was determined.

"Then you'll be staying here until your mind is changed. Guards!" Mithos hailed, loudly. "Take this boy back to his cell. Give him food and drink, and keep him there until I send for him."

The last thing that Lloyd saw as he was led to the corridor was Mithos' confident, uncompromising face.

* * *

Twice a day, morning and night, Mithos sent for him. And twice a day, morning and night, Lloyd stood before the Cruxis leader and refused to surrender his Exsphere. The summons were like clockwork, and answering them was the only time that he was able to spend away from his cell. In short time, two things were made readily apparent: both Mithos and Lloyd were stubborn, and neither Mithos nor Lloyd was backing down from what he wanted. It was the result of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. While their sessions were very brief, civility was stretched so thin that the simplest courtesies made up a façade riddled with holes of obstinacy and pride. Lloyd never quite calmed. Mithos never quite yelled. Lloyd couldn't stand Mithos' pompousness. And Mithos found Lloyd to be borderline insolent. Each was resolute, unwavering as he clashed so formally with the other.

On the second night of this impasse, Lloyd received a visitor.

The brunet was slouched against the wall of his cell, freshly returned from another fruitless bout with Mithos, when he heard the soft patter of footfalls. "Who's there?" he called out.

The sound stopped.

Lloyd tilted his head in the poor lighting to make out the shape of a man standing just on the other side of his cell door. The visitor's profile was neutral in the darkness.

"Lloyd Irving. What a wonder." There was nothing in the man's tone to indicate any surprise, however. It was as point-blank as it had ever been.

"Yuan?"

"When they told me that Kratos' son was here, I had to come see for myself." The man dropped into a crouch behind the screen of bars, where emerald eyes glinted from within his silhouette. "And here you are."

Lloyd opened his cinnamon eyes a little more than was normal, not yet entirely bereaved of shock. "Yeah, it's great to see you too," Lloyd muttered with a grudging optimism. After all, Yuan's had been a friendly face in the past – part-time friendly, that is. "I almost forgot that you'd be in on this."

Yuan blinked. It looked at least a little honest. "Not that I have a need to persuade you, but my hands are clean."

"Right…" Lloyd's voice left a lot of room for doubt, and he nodded once, slowly, but it was noncommittal. The act didn't seem to suggest either way whether he believed Yuan or not. Personally, the seraph's presence was more than a little comforting. With Yuan there, Lloyd at least had a chance. He had a _hope_. The tall, fair-faced half-elf with the tenuous personality had never been outright bleak in their company. His convictions were artlessly expressed, if he expressed them at all, and if they weren't it was all in rotation of his masks – for the Renegades, for Cruxis. He hadn't always been kind to Lloyd, but he'd been more than fair to their cause, and before it was all over Lloyd held him in something more than just tolerant regard. The question was: which mask was Yuan wearing now? Lloyd squinted and made out the long spill of azure at Yuan's shoulder. "Did you come to bust me out of here?"

"I hardly want to get involved, Lloyd."

"Then why did you come?"

"I already told you."

The boy grabbed the bars and dragged himself to his knees. He needed to be understood. He _had_ to make himself understood. "Yggdrasill kidnapped me." Lloyd's face was shadowy in what little light flickered through. Yuan noticed the yellow cast of his skin from old bruises that mottled his complexion into something ghoulish but decidedly no longer black. Probing brown eyes drilled right back into him. "He's after my Exsphere. Any idea why?"

"I suspect that Yggdrasill has his plans," came the very casual reply.

"But do you know what they are?"

Yuan shrugged with impassive features.

"Yuan," Lloyd asserted himself a little more forcefully. "He won't let me go."

The half-elf rose to his feet with never a ripple in his calm exterior.

Lloyd followed suit, though he leaned considerably against the door. His hands hung in a limp grasp around the bars. "Please. I don't even know what's going on here. Who are all the soldiers? I thought that Yggdrasill wanted an Age of Lifeless Beings."

In answer, Yuan appraised him with a distinctly odd look, almost as though the seraph were the one confused. "To where did you assume the Desians absconded?"

"The… Desians?" Lloyd's eyes narrowed for some moments before widening with sudden, disdainful understanding. "You mean those are…?"

"Had you thought that they simply disappeared? From Sylvarant into nothingness?" Yuan chided. "Lloyd, use your head. They came with us."

"I-I didn't realize—" Those had been Desian faces under the helmets. The more he learned, the more he didn't want to know.

But he had to.

"Why are you guys here?"

"Too many questions." And Yuan shook his head. "I have to go."

Lloyd could have howled then in his exasperation. Yuan was playing a tough hand. The swordsman dropped his forehead against his wrist as he clutched the bars dejectedly. But then he felt larger hands touch his own, and he looked back up into Yuan's dauntless and enduring deep-sea eyes.

"Don't get desperate."

Before Lloyd could ask what he meant, Yuan left.

* * *

Through arch and stretching passageway, he strolled, never once deterred from his destination by Desian or commonplace angel. Yuan had heard what he went to hear, even though he hadn't specifically armed himself with any preconceptions when he set out for Lloyd. It was amazing how much the boy gave away in his barefaced confusion.

From Lloyd's cell, it had been a straight shot, and Yuan was the arrow.

He absentmindedly flicked his ponytail over his shoulder and pulled himself up. There, at a console in a vault well-radiated with light, he spelled out his message.

Then he transmitted it.

* * *

"Lord Aurion, we are in recipience of an uncatalogued transmission from Tethe'alla."

The man who the angel addressed turned his back on a static monitor and gave said angel an obscure glance. They worked in silence for weeks at a time, even during the periods when the only thing that Kratos wanted was correspondence from Tethe'alla. But this was early… or uncalled for… and just plain surprising. Furthermore, it was uncatalogued? Kratos was taken aback, but it did not show in his stoic expression.

"Display it."

And even though they were behind an unstable mana barrier, too far away from Tethe'alla for any kind of live communication – and even though the screen presented word and symbol instead of video and voice – Kratos felt his entire body seize up when he read the incredibly brief message.

On the screen, it said:

**He has Lloyd.**

And just below it, one word:

**Fly.**


	6. Chapter 6

Kratos' departure from Derris-Kharlan was as immediate as he could make it. He couldn't ignore the implicit urgency of that message. **Fly**, it had read. Kratos took it as a reckoning, something that should not go unheeded, something that foreshadowed disaster and somehow threw Kratos' baser emotions into a state of upheaval. In its monosyllabic simplicity, it urged all haste. Mithos had Lloyd. What could that entail? Kratos accepted, with some guilt, the fact that he hadn't thought much of the boy since beginning his work on Derris-Kharlan. Lloyd was always there – would always be there – somewhere in the back of Kratos' mind, but he was presumably safe and sound in Sylvarant and away from him. That's all that Kratos really needed to know; that his son was away from _him_. Away from Cruxis, the powers that be. But this changed everything. Everything. If that message was true, then Kratos had to get involved. He would not allow Mithos to destroy his son's life just as he'd destroyed Anna's.

The subsequent hours after the transmission were spent in the vein of order and promptness because, unfortunately, for Kratos to leave Derris-Kharlan was a considerable undertaking. In so many words, the comet was on life support, and Kratos was its oxygen. He couldn't desert it while it was like that. To do so would would be to undo all of his arduous work and leave Derris-Kharlan to suffocate, an end of which Mithos would not be mightily proud. Today, everything was functioning smoothly. Today, Kratos had a grip on things. But that said nothing for tomorrow. He had to prepare for every contingency pending his absence, varying from flux alteration to mainframe failure. Excavation had to be halted on another dust artery because Kratos couldn't trust auxiliary assistance with that. Rapid arrangements had to be made. Technology had to be manned effectively. The angels cooperated with him in these denouements. There was a litany of operations to be delegated, many of which had to be reworked into formula so that a creature lacking all subjectivity and intuition could officiate – formulas like, if the angular separation of Tethe'alla from Sylvarant, as seen from Derris-Kharlan, exceeds 23.8°, shut down a south artery and siphon mana into a north – relative to the _comet's_ established north – once again, keeping a symmetry. Step-by-step, cause-and-effect instruction such as this was the most efficient way of directing the actions of passionless angels. They couldn't solve a feeling, but they could solve for radians using the laws of science, if so commanded.

He worked as fast as he could, but it still took him into the next day before plans were laid and he could escape the rock. He had to make sure that _he_ wouldn't upset the undertow either just by leaving. When he finally set boot down on the cold, tileless hallway of Centrum, Kratos wasted no time in finding Mithos. At a brisk pace, he strode singlemindedly through marble galleries and immaculate corridors. His face never changed, and perhaps it was that lack of expression that scurried men from his path double-quick. He spared little of his attention for his surroundings, even though the place was an industrious beehive of activity with Desians sprinting in pairs and angels, in their robes and willowy green neckbands, carrying material stuff. No one stopped to make eye contact with him for more than a hapless instant. He was a thundercloud in full regalia, with unlined panne cape ghosting behind him in an amethyst shroud and legs of straight, non-pleated white carrying him past the speculative glances. He stopped for nothing, no diversion, no orientation, and no rest, only continued in a brooding march toward the great hall where Mithos substantiated himself and his declarations day after day. Kratos turned another corner. His mind ran wild wondering where they could be hiding his son. And why.

Soon enough, he steered himself under the forbidding archway.

Mithos' pale eyes flew to him immediately when Kratos appeared at the sanctum entrance, even as Mithos issued orders to one of his four angels elect. The Cruxis leader didn't look the least bit surprised to see him. He didn't even falter his words. In mid-sentence, his unconcerned eyes left Kratos to focus again on the angel with whom he was engaged. He stood with his back in quarter view of Kratos, separating the stem of his words from the rest of the hall.

Kratos drew himself up on the carpet and waited for audience with Mithos, contained, patient, expectant, with stern command of his face and his eyes all but censored. There was an unpleasant feeling that clutched him, trying to twist his composure into something berserk, but he stayed himself. He couldn't afford Mithos' temper, not while Lloyd was somewhere nearby. It was rash enough that he'd made this unauthorized, impromptu descent from Derris-Kharlan, but it was a risk he'd known that he had to take.

As he waited, Kratos noticed the angels entering and exiting the hall and more servants milling just outside it. He knew that the sudden stream of subjects was because he was there. They already knew. He wasn't sure how, but they always knew. The Desians spread news like wildfire throughout Centrum, unable to curb their boorish tongues. It was little less than a phenomenon to them: all three of Cruxis' Seraphim were currently present in Centrum. It was an occurrence that didn't often happen. And that was enough for any Desian to step lightly and mind his or her conduct.

Mithos finally turned away from the blank-faced drone and regarded Kratos with an unreadable stare. "You're early," he thinly stated, with a face trained to indifference and a voice that barely restrained its frost. Clearly, he was not overjoyed at Kratos' sudden appearance on Centrum and what it denoted for the comet. "I hadn't expected Derris-Kharlan's priming to be so swiftly concluded."

"Where is he?" Kratos flatly returned, refusing to be drawn first thing into the defensive. He wasn't going to let Mithos back him into that corner. There was a purpose for him this day, and he couldn't help it if that purpose was perceived as a threat. Kratos' eyes were deep, abiding pools of reproach as they leveled on the Cruxis leader. Mithos would have his discussion about Derris-Kharlan, but not until Lloyd's whereabouts were confirmed.

Straightaway, Mithos' eyebrows lifted. "_He_?" As fickle as the wind, his mood adopted mock bemusement – or, at least, that's what he pretended.

Kratos knew better, knew that Mithos was an insidious creature. He stood his ground and said nothing.

With leisurely steps, Mithos sauntered across the carpet, making as if to pass Kratos, and stopped just at his side. The half-elf wore no cloak to cover his tall, lean frame, and his long, silken tresses of pale gold fell neatly down his back as he paused, a powerful figure in his own right. He knew very well, of course, that Kratos was referring to Lloyd.

And Kratos knew that he knew.

Shoulder to shoulder, neither Seraph spared even a sideways glance for the other.

Mithos was all at once absolute. "Say it, Kratos," he ordered, before beginning to circle the Aurion like a hawk who's found its prey. When he was at Kratos' back, he bitingly resumed his requisition, "I want to hear you say it." His tone left no room for disobedience. Mithos was the epitome of self-assurance.

Kratos stood still and stonefaced. His anger fringed every breath, still held in check. But he gave in. As surely as he lived, Kratos eternally submitted to Mithos. Compliant with his bidding, Kratos rephrased his question, "Where is my son?"

All too obviously placated by the words that he'd wanted to hear, Mithos beamed with a disposition that was disconcerting to Kratos in its pleasantness. The tension that had developed in the hall evaporated instantly, and Mithos returned to Kratos' front before obliging his question. "_Your son_ is in Holding-two."

"Why is he here?"

At this, Mithos looked miffed. "I don't know, since I've given him freedom to leave."

Kratos sensed the weight of what wasn't said. He fixed Mithos with his directness. "Under what stipulations?"

The Cruxis leader smiled a lackluster smile. "That he give me his Exsphere."

Kratos' silence signified his uncertainty if not his displeasure.

"I've explained its uselessness to him, now that his Journey is over, but he seems to have a very sentimental – a very _human_ – attachment to it."

Kratos favored Mithos with an extremely bland look. His worry for Lloyd was hidden away, but perhaps not carefully enough. Bargaining with Mithos Yggdrasill was a dangerous thing, and resisting Mithos Yggdrasill was all the more dangerous. The only obstacle that could possibly stand between Mithos and Lloyd was Kratos himself. It made Mithos mad – a sugared over madness, but madness all the same – and smug because Mithos knew how much influence Kratos actually had.

"I want you back on Derris-Kharlan, Kratos." All business. It was like Mithos wanted to test his power over Kratos, to flex it like an untapped muscle.

"Don't touch my family, Mithos." A gutsy warning. All Kratos needed was one tiny excuse when it came to his son and suddenly the path beneath his feet was all fine lines. He was treading on a razor-thin edge. Things could blow up at any second.

"You have my word that I haven't, not with a single finger, nor have I touched a hair on his head." And it was the literal truth. Only the Desians touched Lloyd when he was escorted to and from his summons. _But what would you do if I had? _seemed to hang unspoken in the air.

They stood so stiffly, and as they traded gazes a battle of wills was waged. If it were anyone but Lloyd, Kratos wouldn't have dared overstep his bounds. If it were anyone but Lloyd, Kratos wouldn't have left the comet. If it were anyone but Lloyd, Kratos wouldn't be so apprehensive. But as it was Lloyd, Kratos had no choice but to challenge Mithos… and be crushed underfoot once again. He could entertain the idea that he had the strength to get out of this life, but whether that was true or false didn't matter because he hadn't needed to anymore. Even now, there was nothing. He had no excuse to make a move. He was told that Mithos hadn't even touched Lloyd. So, then, there was no problem. There was no real violation in Mithos keeping Lloyd here. But could Kratos really trust that there wouldn't be one?

"Ask Yuan." And Mithos smiled a terrible, knowing smile.

* * *

Lloyd lay on his back upon his cell's only pallet, bored out of his mind. He guessed that, in his situation, he should have a lot to think about, but thinking was all there was to do here, and his cyclical thoughts were no fun at all. He already knew why he was here. And he'd already given his answer to Mithos over a dozen times. There wasn't anything else to think about concerning his captivity. He tucked his arms behind his head as he scanned the chalky ceiling for any age-induced cracks and counted imaginary stars. The bruises on his upturned face had since healed, leaving behind a complexion that was only slightly paler than before. His thoughts roamed to his friends back home, and he wondered how Genis' welcome-home party went without him. It wasn't the first time that he'd wondered about that. He'd had plenty of time to. Yuan never came back after his first visit. His company had been the first, last, and only. Lloyd harbored no grudge. No sense making excuses. This was all temporary anyway. Yggdrasill couldn't keep him here forever.

The grating of the cell door surprised Lloyd, and he pivoted his head. It was too soon for Yggdrasill to call on him again.

But when he recognized who it was walking into his cell, Lloyd surged to his feet in dumbfounded astonishment.

"Kratos!"

"Lloyd."

The man examined Lloyd tactlessly. It had been months since Dirk's funeral – months since he'd last seen his son. For the world, time changed nothing but tiny pieces of a whole, day by day. But for Kratos, the subtle alterations that months can bring to a teenager changed everything when the alterations seemed to manifest all at once before the parent's eyes. Lloyd would be eighteen years old now – or nearly so. Kratos judged that he stood at the same height as when last he saw him – maybe an inch taller to indicate the beginnings of a late growth spurt, but too close for Kratos to really tell the difference. Lloyd's face looked changed, though. He retained all of his youthful zeal, and his eyes were still the fathomless brown glossed over with enthusiasm at the sight of Kratos, but they were set in a face that was more sharply defined, even if in the slightest bit. His hair possessed its same tameless nature as before, but even if he couldn't put his finger on it Kratos knew that Lloyd wasn't the same boy. He was starting to grow up, and the image that Kratos had in his head didn't seem to fit him with exactness because Lloyd was growing out of that two-dimensional box.

"You're alright, then?" The austerity of his manner lessened a little.

"I'm fine," Lloyd grinned goodnaturedly. He may have been days' prisoner, but the fire hadn't been smitten. For some reason, he wanted to hug Kratos, to touch him again so that he might digest the rush of elation that had so suddenly interrupted the monotony of every day. But he knew better. He curbed himself. "You're a sight for sore eyes! I wondered where they were hiding you."

Kratos didn't mention that he had wondered the same of Lloyd. The trust in the boy's eyes was so full, like he believed that Kratos had a handle on anything having to do with this. "I've been away."

"Where?" probed Lloyd, curious as ever.

"Outside of Centrum," Kratos responded, vaguely.

"Doing what?"

"Cruxis business."

"Oh." Lloyd ducked his head, getting the hint that Kratos didn't want to detail him. All three Seraphs seemed to share that commonality. With face downcast, Lloyd idly inspected his Exsphere.

Kratos noticed it but waited for Lloyd to speak.

"Yggdrasill wants my Exsphere," the boy began. Quickly enough, his face turned to a mulish expression. "But I won't let him have it. I told him that it was a memento from Mom."

Kratos listened quietly, never taking his unperturbed gaze from his son.

"Since then, he's kept me cooped up here. He says that he'll let me go as soon as I change my mind and hand him the Exsphere."

"Will you?" Kratos ventured, already knowing the answer.

"I won't." Lloyd bluntly stated. He frowned darkly with raw passion and backbone. "I'll never give in. Mom didn't."

Kratos had to look away, then, from the boy, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh. It stung so badly, like the purifying pain of an Apple Gel over a fresh wound, knowing that Lloyd was so similar to Anna even when she was gone, and that he was so much like her without any reinforcement whatsoever from Kratos. Lloyd was nothing short of her rectitude. Lloyd was sublime. Achingly, nostalgically sublime, like a portrait depiction of a sterling god. He was evocative of that classic Mithos archetype – not the Mithos of now, but the Mithos of the Old War, the one who was bright-eyed and big-hearted and written into stories. Kratos' fears were very much allayed whenever he rediscovered that Lloyd was no chip off the old block. But he lapsed into guilt because he did nothing for the boy and let him run wild, leaving him to his own devices and maybe once in a while giving him a pat on the back – and that was only a figurative pat on the back.

"It's right, isn't it? I'm doing the right thing."

Kratos looked upon Lloyd once more to find no misgivings in the boy's solid stare. It held nothing but steel. The Seraph was reminded of the night of Dirk's funeral, when it felt like Lloyd wouldn't acknowledge anything but what was right in front of him, what he had to do to persevere. It's like the boy refused to see reality for what it was. He was such an idealist.

"Yggdrasill is a jerk."

"You should not speak ill of him," Kratos instantly replied.

Lloyd chortled as if it were funny. "Why not?"

Kratos lowered his voice out of grim necessity. "Because there is a detail of men just outside this cell—"

"They came with you—"

"—and they report what they hear."

Lloyd broke off into a silence of his own, pondering Kratos' face and behavior. Was that why he was acting like this? Was their conversation being overheard? Lloyd felt like Kratos wasn't allowing himself to attach at all to what he was saying. Maybe the guards weren't just the great Seraph's escort, after all. Lloyd rubbed his forehead and wondered why anybody would want to spy on a prisoner.

"Why is my Exsphere special?"

"I'd imagine that Yggdrasill has his—"

"His reasons. I know." Lloyd sounded more than a little cross. He'd heard it all before.

Kratos stared at him with dark amber intent.

"I'm not sure what's going on with this whole Tethe'alla business."

Kratos didn't say anything.

"And asking you won't get me anywhere, will it?"

Suddenly, Kratos stepped back. "I am glad to find you well," he remarked, heralding an abrupt exit.

"Wait," Lloyd blinked. "You're leaving?"

"There are matters to which I must attend. I had to make sure that you weren't hurt, first."

Lloyd instinctively held his left hand, touching deft fingers to his Exsphere, before pulling back to his pallet and sitting himself down. Shock coursed through his body and throbbed at his temples. Kratos' visit was even shorter than Yuan's. It didn't make sense. None of it made sense. But, though he was more than a little puzzled, Lloyd made himself respond. "… Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

It was Kratos' turn to notice the reticence in his tone. Or was it the sound of something forced?

"He won't have my Exsphere. I'll be fine," Lloyd repeated, stepping up a little on his projected confidence, even though he felt slightly devastated. "We'll talk later, after you're finished whatever it is that you have to do."

Kratos gave a last, concentrated glance at Lloyd that told the boy nothing. His son looked akin to a downtrodden piece of chattel. But there was still the doggedness in his eyes. And Kratos believed him. He believed him, and he hadn't witnessed a reason to disbelieve Mithos.

And, so, he walked away.

Lloyd watched him go.

* * *

It was in a private vault that Yuan and Kratos met. Kratos sought out the solitude to escape the parade of Desian soldiers that ebbed throughout Centrum. They were everywhere, Kratos had observed. He knew that had to rankle Mithos. Even if they were the work of his own hands – and very useful to him – Mithos showed a choleric temper toward the Desian branch of his infrastructure. They were administrated differently than the so-called holy beings, and that was justified by their sensibility where the angels had none. But the Desians were less than exalted. Now they were tightly packed in Centrum with him – by his own will! – and though Mithos ruled them, he usually didn't handle ordinary dealings with them. The Grand Cardinals did. And the Grand Cardinals answered to Yuan. And Yuan went directly to Mithos. In this way, there was a filtration process, a hierarchy, and one that was as discriminatory as any Tethe'allan caste system. It branded Mithos a hypocrite, if he'd but open his eyes and see. Kratos wasn't sure that he ever would

The vault was a secluded place, with a practical stateliness, and about as barren as Kratos' mind as he forced out the maelstrom of turbulence, alarm, and brown irises that were so alike to his own. The walls adhered to a curvature that stretched the room into an elongated oval. Alone, he was a statue as he sat in wait, hands perfectly folded over the hilt of his long sword as it perched upright before him. His hair was a faded umber as it shadowed his face and the lines of anxiety that did not actually exist.

Kratos was alone, and that's all that Yuan needed.

"I assume that you've been to see Lloyd," came a temperate pitch, and Kratos lifted his head to behold Yuan stepping into the vault, with eyes so like cavern gemstones and bearing poised. It was the first time in a long while that they spoke to each other apart from on-screen transmissions, and the first time in longer that they spoke informally.

"I have," Kratos confirmed. He did not move.

"He's giving Mithos a try for his patience," Yuan smoothly disclosed in a way so typical of him, as if hinting at something that may be just past his literal meaning.

Kratos targeted him with a cynical stare as he was made to analyze the implication for any credibility. He soon dismissed his scrutiny. "A mere thorn in his side, at most."

"Like you."

As if Yuan had hit a nerve, Kratos' features hardened, and he rose to his feet. He wasn't angry, but there was an aura about him, a stifled agitation. "Mithos knows it was you who tipped me off," Kratos returned, calmly but levelly.

"Of course he knows it was me," Yuan scoffed, not at all put off by his age-old friend's warning. "Who else would it have been?"

"Then why did you do it?"

Something changed, then, because Yuan's voice radiated more than sameness or deference.

"Because Lloyd is your son."

It was careful, true, measured beyond a doubt because he sensed Kratos' turmoil, but there was an empathy there that was aged thousands of years and still ran unfeigned, like an ancient river. Yuan was the riverbed, deeply patterned into the earth. He was the yin to Kratos' yang. Sincerity shone evanescently in his eyes, like a turquoise display of human compassion.

"You deserve to know. You would've done the same for me."

Kratos never took his unblinking, assessing eyes from Yuan.

"He's frightened, Kratos, despite how he acts," continued Yuan in ever-preserved tones, as he rested his hand on his waist. "He has every right to be."

"I know that," Kratos finally murmured, breaking his silence.

"Then you must see that his braveness is a front for you and something of which Mithos will soon grow bored."

Kratos shook his head and gave Yuan the grimmest of significant glances. "What do you expect me to do about it?" He voiced the fatalistic question disquietedly.

Yuan stared long and hard at the man opposite him. Then he only shrugged. "I don't expect you to do anything that you don't see as called for," he stated matter-of-factly. "After all, you're his father. Only you'd know what's best for him."

Kratos very consciously chose to say nothing to that.

"I only wanted to make you aware of the situation," Yuan said. "You deserve the chance to make things right."

"Mithos ordered me back to Derris-Kharlan," Kratos woodenly made himself say. Wan eyes unfocused from Yuan's and zeroed in on the wall just beyond the half-elf's right shoulder.

"Is that so?"

"I'm going."

"I see…"

Kratos frowned, at last exteriorly expressing some kind of emotion, negative though it may be. "You think that's wrong of me?" he asked, critically.

"I didn't say that."

"You're thinking it. Don't lie to me, Yuan, I know you better than that."

"The only lie here is between you and yourself. If you didn't feel guilty, then you wouldn't be so testy with me."

"He's my son."

"And if you think that he's fine here, then leave. By all means."

Yuan was as logical as ever, able to argue an issue threadbare and instigate Kratos toward a reality of which he'd rather stay ignorant.

"He is fine here." Words that he'd never dreamed he'd say. Words that were the complete opposite of how he'd always felt. All heatedness evaporated away, and Kratos moved toward the door.

Yuan watched him go, like a conscience abandoned.

"Yuan," Kratos hesitated, pausing at the door. He turned his head over his shoulder but did not look at the half-elf Seraph.

"Yes, Kratos?"

"Be good to him."

"I won't babysit your child while you're gone."

"I'm not asking you to. Just… Be good to him for me."

Nothing more was said as Kratos walked out.

* * *

It was late, as evidenced by the tenebrous glow from the hall. But Lloyd wasn't sleeping. He was sagged against the back wall of his cell, oblivious to the way he chewed his lip in his restlessness. It had been several hours, at least, since Kratos had left. In retrospect, Lloyd knew the things that he should've said to the Seraph to elicit better responses. The whole visit had been squandered. But he just had to get through tonight because Kratos was likely to return tomorrow, Lloyd told himself. Kratos served Cruxis. And Cruxis had Lloyd. And now that Kratos was back in Centrum from his whatever-business, he'd be visiting his son because they were together now. That's how Lloyd looked at it, anyway. Maybe things would turn out okay. Yggdrasill would have to let him go.

The ghosts of premature conversations kept Lloyd awake, though. He was dispirited a little by the way that Kratos had been during the visit. When Dirk died, Kratos had acted more humanely. He'd even cooked Lloyd dinner.

"Cream of asparagus soup," Lloyd whispered to himself in remembrance. It had been a nurturing, warming gesture, something very paternal of Kratos. Of course, Lloyd didn't expect Kratos to fix him his meals or lace his boots or even hold his hand, but it sure would be encouraging to know Kratos cared that his son was in a prison.

"Lloyd."

The twin swordsman started at the voice, smacking his shoulder blades against the wall in jerked reflex.

"I didn't mean to spook you."

"Yuan? What're you doing here?" Lloyd crawled from the wall toward the door, like a hare emerging from its nest.

"Visiting, this time," Yuan answered with the dry and familiar overtone of amusement, like visiting was not at all suited to his position but he deigned to visit anyway. Without touching the bars, the man lowered himself to the floor in a stance similar to last time.

"Is that why you come alone at night? So that they don't spy on us?"

"Why do you think that they spy on you?"

"Because when they brought Kratos here earlier, they stayed outside the door. Kratos told me that they listen in and report whatever they hear."

"Hm. Then my coming here in secret is the safest way to speak," Yuan affirmed without ever really answering yes.

"Yeah. Sorry that I can't invite you in, though," joked Lloyd while raising a fist to knock on the locked gate.

Yuan realized that Lloyd was in good cheer, and approved.

The boy rested comfortably against the bars of the gate-door, angling his side against them. He was close enough to Yuan to see the pupils set amidst the elegant green scintillations of his eyes. He could even see individual strands of hair that were tied away from the Seraph's light-complected face.

"You haven't turned me in yet," Yuan ventured, interrupting what seemed very much like a companionable silence. It had to be mentioned, though. Yuan's head was miraculously not on a silver platter – his _Renegade_ head, that is. All it would take is Lloyd's word revealing him as the Renegades' leader and Yuan would be in dire straits, if in any straits at all.

"You haven't given me a reason not to trust you," Lloyd cordially noted.

Touché.

Yuan looked long upon disheveled brown hair and eyes that were a mirror to Kratos' own. This boy graced him in the palm of his hand, and Yuan had nothing but respect for that. In a very quiet, serious voice, Yuan began to speak, choosing his words carefully, "Loyalty is something that Lord Yggdrasill cannot command from me on whim."

He wasn't sure that Lloyd would understand what he meant by that short, deliberated statement, or if he even should have said it, but something in the Seraph recognized that he owed Lloyd a little more than amenities. He had to test the waters with this boy, this son of Kratos.

"It's a good thing for him, then, that you've had thousands of years to become close," Lloyd retaliated just as guardedly.

Whatever answer the half-elf found in that ambiguous exchange must have satisfied him – or put him in his place – for the corners of Yuan's lips turned up. "You are cunning, Lloyd Irving. I didn't expect to find so much of your father in you."

Lloyd ran his hand smartly through his dark hair and gave a self-conscious chuckle. "I didn't know that I had any of him in me." He bit back his simpering, unable to escape from those impeccable green eyes that seemed to be measuring him to the inch. "Guess I'll ask him tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I gotta talk to him again. Remind him to stop by."

It was a very short silence, too short to imply the incoming let-down, and too short to derive awkwardness. Yuan wasn't cold-hearted, by any means, but he didn't inflate discretion unnecessarily and beat around the bush when he needed to give someone bad news, not when it was a truth that needed to be told.

"Lloyd, Kratos is gone," Yuan said without preamble.

There it was. Direct and without question. The Seraph was taking on the conversation that Kratos should have had with his son.

"… Gone?" Lloyd twisted and pushed himself against the bars, all inquisitiveness and confusion as he gazed fixedly at Yuan.

"He left a little while ago, after seeing you."

"But…"

"Lord Yggdrasill sent him back to Derris-Kharlan. He only came here to make sure that you were safe and unharmed."

Lloyd's head fairly buzzed. He was at a loss for words. He really didn't expect this. It was not at all like any of the scenarios prepared in his head. In fact, he was quite positive that Kratos would get him out of this place.

"It's not fair, but it is what it is," Yuan offered, though sounding very forthright and not at all sorry.

"Then… I'm stuck here."

"Only because you believe in something, Lloyd. Like father, like son."

Lloyd became even more perplexed. "What do you mean?"

"The locket that Kratos wears around his neck. As soon as put out the sun than try to take it from him. It's the same with you and your Exsphere."

"Huh."

Yuan watched Lloyd. And Lloyd stared unseeingly back at him.

Then:

"Why would Yggdrasill send him away while I'm here?"

"Because Lord Yggdrasill doesn't trust your father."

"_What?_" Lloyd didn't quite exclaim, but the bafflement was as loud as it was clear. "You've got to be joking. Kratos is… is like _you_ – like _Yggdrasill_."

"What are you trying to say, Lloyd?" Yuan was curt and straightforward, acting for all the world as if he'd just been insulted. "That because we are all Seraphim we have the same agenda?"

It sounded even stupider when Yuan, double-agent and founder of the Renegades, said it.

"No— but, I mean, you three work together on a daily basis! You said yourself that Kratos took off for Derris-Kharlan tonight because Yggdrasill told him to. So why wouldn't Yggdrasill trust him?"

Yuan repositioned himself upon one knee, managing to somehow settle more onto the floor without appearing any less dignified, a feat that only a Seraph could pull off. "Yggdrasill has held Kratos at arms length since Anna."

Lloyd felt himself go slack-jawed at this information. He wouldn't have guessed that. It made sense, but that was so many years ago. If Lloyd knew anything about his father, it was that Kratos had long since returned to the will of Cruxis. Serving Yggdrasill was about the only constant in his life at all. It was the very _definition _of his life.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Yuan broke through his thoughts as if he were reading them. "That I defy Lord Yggdrasill at every turn with the Renegades, yet Kratos goes mistrusted while heeding his every beck and call?"

Lloyd could've sworn that he saw Yuan smile, but it was a frail, empty thing.

"It wasn't a light betrayal, and Kratos has long since compensated for it," the half-elf continued, picking up the story of Kratos and Anna's attempted escape from Cruxis. In a very calculated motion, Yuan pointed his forefinger at Lloyd, directly between the boy's deep, dark, fiery eyes. "But then there was you."

"But I didn't know anything! Dirk was my father!"

"It doesn't matter. There was you and Sylvarant's World Regeneration Journey, and Kratos was sent. Maybe it was fate," Yuan mused. "The Journey was Cruxis' failure, but at least Lord Yggdrasill learned of your existence."

Lloyd only half-concealed his shudder, and he turned from his rapt attention at the door bars. "All this time since the Journey I had no idea that an entire organization was spying on me."

"An entire organization wasn't spying on you."

"Huh?" Lloyd uttered in startlement. He quickly moved back around to face Yuan.

"Kratos was spying on you."

Lloyd blinked. "Why?"

"You are his son. He may not show it, but he cares for you very deeply."

With mouth agape, Lloyd was struck with this notion. Maybe that was how Kratos had gotten wind of Dirk's funeral. Maybe his father really had been looking out for him all these months.

"Kratos kept an eye on you. But where Kratos watches, Lord Yggdrasill also watches."

Lloyd processed this information in silence.

"And where Lord Yggdrasill watches, I watch."

"I thought you said that the Seraphim didn't share the same agenda," Lloyd put in.

"We don't. Lord Yggdrasill looks where Kratos looks because Lord Yggdrasill does not trust him. And I look where Lord Yggdrasill looks… because that is my job."

"As a member of Cruxis or as a Renegade?"

Yuan smiled wryly. "Both."

Lloyd groaned, although he was grateful to Yuan for shedding some light on things at long last. "So it was only a matter of time before Yggdrasill came for me."

"I suppose you could say that."

"I don't understand why he wants my Exsphere," Lloyd tentatively began, all the while closely watching Yuan's face. "Do you?"

"It's difficult to say," Yuan evasively answered.

"At least tell me if you know or not. I'd feel a lot better if I knew that you knew the story behind all of this, even if you won't share it with me."

Yuan rose like a shadow to his feet.

Lloyd just sighed. It seemed that every time he tried to press the Seraphim, they recoiled from him.

"I've said more than enough tonight."

Sighing a long sigh, Lloyd had to agree. "You did."

"It's time I was off." Yuan swept his hair back over his shoulder.

"Alright."

"Take care of yourself, Lloyd."

"Yeah, you too," Lloyd replied. He watched Yuan watch him for all of a moment before the Seraph rounded the corner into the hall.

Lloyd stood and drifted around his cell for a few dreamlike minutes, letting Yuan's words run through his head to rest neatly in those crevices of his mind that held questions and precipiced foreboding. His spine was tired, but he did not stretch, only rolled his shoulders and listened to them pop. On top of restlessness, he was abandoned. Again. It didn't feel as harsh as he thought it should – Kratos leaving him, that is. It was disappointing, and it hurt a little bit, but he had never been Kratos' priority except for maybe when he was a toddler. That was some forgotten past of Lloyd's that was drowned out by the present day. For all he knew, _Anna_ had been Kratos' priority even then, not him. It made sense the way that Yuan had explained it. Yggdrasill was always looking over Kratos' shoulder. Wherever Kratos focused his attentions was where Yggdrasill trained his eyes. But if Kratos was capable of an out-of-the-way visit to Iselia when Dirk died, why wouldn't he stick around for something like this? Furthermore, why didn't he tell him that he was going back to Derris-Kharlan tonight? Furthermore…

It was okay. Lloyd took a breath. It was alright.

At least he had Yuan. And Yggdrasill wasn't pushing him. The boy bowed his head, and tangles of darkest ash fell into his vision and tickled his eyelids. He had nothing over a Seraph. Well, nothing besides the Exsphere, apparently. And Lloyd would protect it with all that was in him. Back and forth, he rolled his wrist, and the Exsphere glimmered in the colorless light. Lloyd stared, transfixed.

"What am I gonna do?"

Now he really wouldn't be able to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

"I think he's alright."

"What?"

"I'm saying that I think Lloyd's okay."

Raine inclined her head toward her brother, signaling that she was listening, but her eyes never left her hands. No matter. She was prepared to shoot him down once again.

"Because of Tethe'alla? Genis, it's _Cruxis_."

"Yeah, and Cruxis falls under Tethe'allan law now."

Sheltered within the Sage house, with its timbered walls and densely thatched roof, Raine and Genis were having an off-and-on tabletop conversation – off-and-on because it wasn't going smoothly. Raine was scarcely paying attention – or, rather, refused to when it came to the topic of Cruxis – instead putting her utmost concentration to stitching up a dark cyan pullover that Genis somehow managed to fray whilst living desk-bound at the Academy with his nose in his textbooks and his eyes glued to chalkboards and other such physically exerting, wardrobe-taxing activities. Although Raine could be resourceful – often _had_ _to_ be when it came to raising her younger brother – she multi-tasked very poorly. Genis considered it small wonder that her cooking turned out so terribly when she insisted upon mending his clothes while exploring a new recipe. Fifty percent and fifty percent didn't amount to nearly enough, in this case.

"If it's even true," Raine scolded in an attempt to derail this train before it took off down the tracks.

"It is. I'm telling you it is. It's all the news in Palmacosta."

Genis, on the other hand, _was_ paying attention to their somewhat-conversation, much to his sister's agitation. He wouldn't let the subject drop. Seated at the table with open textbooks that spanned the width of the suar wood, he took a shot again and again at his elder sister, like a dart to a bull's-eye, only to arouse an undesirable reaction from Raine each time. She would not be baited into the discussion. She was slow to answer, if she answered at all. Genis knew that she didn't like to talk about Cruxis so freely, but the world had changed… and Cruxis had taken away his best friend.

The news of Lloyd's kidnapping had barreled full-force into Genis within the first five minutes of his welcome-home hugs in Iselia. The young half-elf was stricken immediately with weak knees, wide eyes, and a heavyhearted despair when Colette fell against him and he heard her cry, and why, what she was saying, and where Lloyd was. He'd dropped his luggage bags in the sand-colored dirt, exchanging them for the nigh hysterical girl flinging herself at him. It was a lot to swallow so suddenly – in fact, he hadn't been able to swallow at all when he'd heard the news; his throat muscles just didn't want to constrict for some reason. The impact of Colette's story was a grotto monster, springing at his back from the darkness, and something with which he had to tackle and wrestle without ever being able to face dead-on. He had lost Lloyd. Lloyd was gone. Dirk's house was still there, with all its festive decorations, but neither Dirk nor Lloyd was inside it. The fear was terrible. The shock was worse, especially after Dirk's death. Genis hated that he hadn't been there for Lloyd at his dad's funeral. So much of him had wanted to buck obligations and hightail it back to Iselia, but his sister had instructed him, in the well-worded but tragic letter, to stay right where he was, to carry on with his classes, that it was the best thing for him. And so, in the wake of Dirk's death, Genis and Lloyd had mourned apart. Whatever long-time regrets he would sustain by choosing the Academy over Lloyd in his best friend's time of need, the half-elf was nowhere near prepared for this.

But Genis wasn't bowed by this new grief the way that Colette was. He had something to go on, from what he'd heard in Palmacosta.

Cruxis, the body of angels that had so fantastically existed between worlds – right under their noses! – had dropped anchor in Tethe'alla. The Church recognized Cruxis. The monarchy was trying to. And that information had reached Iselia dead last. Everything was fast-paced in Palmacosta, from trade to independent chronicles of a changing world to elbow grease. The port city sponsored an influx of traffic, seasons-round. If anybody would be up to date, Palmacosta would be. _Genis_ would be. Genis claimed that all of Palmacosta and beyond had been hit by the Cruxis sensation. Genis himself had been the godsend agent of confirmation to Iselia, straight from the heart of the city with all its worldly ways and Palmacostan gossip. He came home preaching a motley of tales, the most interesting being the tales of Cruxis' publicity stunts.

In his youth, Genis was impressionable, but the thing that bothered Raine was that he wasn't gullible enough to grab hold of the grapevine and dig his own roots if he didn't first believe that it had all started with a seed of truth. That her brother jogged the hearsay and gleaned a validity from it was what unnerved her. It meant that the actions reported of Cruxis may very well be true, and that was something Raine didn't like. That was why she was in a mood today. She wanted to condemn Genis' stories. Their conversation was a patchwork of silences and filler arguments.

"Cruxis isn't something that can be mainstreamed," said Raine.

"I'm sure we'll find out if that's true," arbitrated Genis, in a tone golden enough to annoy Raine.

"It _is_ true. Have you forgotten the Journey already?"

"I know that what Yggdrasill tried to do to Colette was wrong, but he's out on a limb in this. Maybe he's chosen a different direction."

Raine scowled deeply, unmoved. She didn't know why her brother wasn't siding with her on this. He was thinking too much like a Palmacostan.

"People do change, Sis."

"It's Cruxis."

"Cruxis is an organization of _people_."

"Lifeless beings." Raine shook her head. "You can hardly call them people."

Genis went strangely, noticeably quiet, avoiding his sister with his blue-eyed stare. She had such distaste in her voice. Such venom.

Raine seemed not to notice or else interpreted Genis' silence as having gained the upper hand. She plowed on. "I don't care if the rest of the world doesn't know what we know, Genis, but Cruxis cannot coexist with us."

He made himself meet her doomsday eyes, and he looked ready to break. His face looked sick, which gave her pause. "… Isn't that what they said about us?" remarked Genis, in a voice so small with reason and injury and goodness. His sister sounded like the segregationists from his early childhood, people who'd gotten under his skin and who he'd hated for no other reason than that they hated him first. She was exasperating him, and his conflict was heard in his whisper. Through their love for each other, Raine and Genis were supposed to rise above it all, yet his sister was martyring him here at the breakfast table.

Raine opened her mouth. She saw that the damage had been done. Genis was full of tolerance and hope, and she was bridling both. She wanted to hug him and apologize straightaway. Instead, she succeeded in pricking her forefinger with her needle and grimacing over the blood – her _hot_ blood, apparently. Some kind of influence she was. The two of them had always been objects of discrimination. But her little brother was a miracle. Palmacosta Academy was a miracle. Whatever he was learning there, just in being allowed, was making him more of a better person. She couldn't say the same for herself.

The siblings were silent for a time. Raine continued finagling her stitchwork. Genis pretended to concentrate on his textbook, even though he'd been rereading the same paragraph over and over again.

"I'm sorry, Genis." Raine emerged from her iron curtain sounding so sympathetic, tender, and warm. She wanted to soften her heart to her brother in this, which was fortunate because Genis didn't know if he could take much more of her narrow-minded pessimism. Losing Lloyd had been hard on him. "Forgive my unbelief. You are wise. And you are right."

"I just… I just want to believe that Lloyd is okay, even if I have to undo my better judgment. Let me believe, at least. Give me that much." And if it meant believing the best of Cruxis, then so be it.

Raine nodded and fell silent again.

A gust of wind whistled around the frame of their little home.

"Do you think it was intentional," Raine started very quietly, as if voicing a conspiracy. "that we were on this side when the Tower fell?"

Genis looked up from the table to study his sister, trying to gain an inkling of where she was going with this. "Dunno. Maybe. Why?"

"It's as if the entire Journey never happened. I wonder if it was planned this way. We're here, and Sheena, Zelos, and the others are back there. Sylvarant for the Sylvarantis and Tethe'alla for the Tethe'allans. No amalgamation."

"There is amalgamation," Genis disputed. "Lloyd is over there."

Raine nodded once to herself, finally willing to take her brother's word for it and plant it under her feet as the shakiest foundation of conjecture. "But how did Lloyd get there? The Tower fell."

"Well," Genis began very slowly, as if saying this out loud was testing the theory for the first time. "How do you think the rumors got here?"

Raine's hands stopped completely, then.

"I would suppose that Lloyd got over there the same way that news of Cruxis got over here. Don't look at me like that, Raine. It doesn't sound any crazier than what we've already heard. There must still be a gateway somewhere, and somebody came through it and brought the stories here. Rumors don't usually fabricate from nothing."

"Then, for Lloyd's sake, to make that leap I'd really have to believe that what you say about Cruxis and Tethe'alla is true."

"Raine, there are laboratories with instruments set up to watch this sort of thing. They saw Derris-Kharlan. Saw it move."

"And _I_ saw the Tower fall – the Tower that supposedly connected the two worlds. Tell me, if that connection has been severed, how can an Iselian boy travel from Sylvarant to Tethe'alla?"

"How did the Desians leave Sylvarant?" Genis staunchly countered, rummaging up a little bit of Raine-like adamancy. "It's not just Lloyd. The Desians are gone too. There hasn't been a single reported sighting of them since the Tower fell." With bright eyes and flushed cheeks, Genis leaned forward, gripping the table hard. "They must have gone to the other side."

"Genis…"

The boy was hot in this debate. All the things that he'd been quietly piecing together since coming home were now fitting into a puzzle of sorts, and he wanted to convince Raine. Maybe Sheena and the others weren't completely lost to them. After all this time, maybe there was a way back.

Genis carefully trained his eyes back down on his books. "There's a way, Raine. There's a way."

"You think that there's something we missed." Not really a question.

"Somehow there are people who are still moving between worlds. I don't know how or where, but I _know_ it now because Lloyd is one of them. I don't know what really happened when the Tower fell. I know that the Rheiards got knocked offline and that Derris-Kharlan moved. I know that the two worlds seemed to be cut off from each other. I don't know the implications of what that means. But there are too many coincidences to believe that it all means nothing. First the Desians, then the rumors, and now Lloyd."

"But we are in the deficient world. Without the Tower and the Journey of World Regeneration, we don't have the mana. Without that connection between Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, we don't have the means."

"You make it sound like the two worlds vying for mana was a good thing."

"I'm not saying that. I only meant that it takes a lot of mana to pass through the interdimensional rift, and with no mana flow to reverse, we can't hope to pass through it."

"But Cruxis did. Round-trip. They came through, took Lloyd, and went back."

Raine sighed and put down the sweater. Both Sage siblings smelled burned cooking, but neither made a move to save the food.

"Somewhere, somehow, there is another gateway that leads to a Cruxis-friendly Tethe'alla. And even if we never find it, I'm saying that I think Lloyd's okay."

* * *

"Will you give me the Exsphere?"

"No."

The routine never changed.

"Will you give me the Exsphere?"

"_No_."

Neither did the answers.

"You understand that cooperation will merit your freedom?"

"Yes."

Lloyd stood only a few feet away from Mithos, facing the Cruxis leader and crediting himself for standing so erect in his lightheadedness. At least, he hoped that he was standing straight. The floor seemed strangely stretched in the fore of his vision, in an odd, narrow kind of way, like the room were tunneled.

It had been several minutes already this morning, and now Mithos began his pacing with a blasé attitude that repressed all ire and emotion, as if it were all mechanical today, as if he were just going through the motions with Lloyd. The Cruxis angel's appearance was as immaculate as ever. Not a tangle or snag in his flaxen fall of hair. His face was all smoothed-over expression. He was garbed in imperial white, and the wrists of his bishop sleeves were trimmed with narrow green velvet ribbon, lending a very aristocratic flavor to his image.

"Will you cooperate?"

"No."

"Is that unmistakably your answer?"

Before Lloyd could sound off another "yes," his stomach gurgled noisily, and he only sighed instead.

Mithos must have heard, for he paused in his pacing to inspect the half-starved teenager. Lloyd was changed from the boy who had first been stolen by Cruxis. It wasn't a leaps-and-bounds kind of change, but it was apparent. Dark brown locks, dirty and unkempt, made a tangled mop that bowed irritatingly over Aurion eyes of carefully restrained resentment. Mithos noticed that Lloyd's forehead looked waxy, even compared to yesterday. Grey pant cuffs were tucked into vermilion boots, but Lloyd didn't bother wearing his belts anymore. His straps hung down the length of his legs. He didn't bother with them anymore either. Nobody said that he had to look presentable in front of Mithos. But it was the subdued nature of Lloyd's eyes that Mithos really studied. They looked duller – for, indeed, Lloyd was immensely lethargic anymore. Mithos could still get a rise out of him if he matched the right words with the right tone, but Lloyd, for the most part, spoke his single-word answers like an automaton and delivered less oomph in their arguments. He didn't need to spend himself on these drill-like sessions. He needed to preserve his strength.

"You can end it any time, you know."

Lloyd just stared at Mithos.

"This isn't cruel, not really. You could be far worse off."

Lloyd opened his mouth to say something but immediately bit off his words when he realized that his retort would give too much of himself away – whatever his stomach hadn't already given away, that is. _**I'm so hungry that I could happily eat Raine's cooking.**_ His stomach assaulted him with another sharp pang, and he could feel the roiling of acids as his body begged for sustenance and geared itself to digest a whole lot of nothing. With the slightest cringe, he amended his thinking. _**I'm so hungry that I could eat through every kitchen in Meltokio Castle.**_ It probably wasn't true, but it didn't seem too great an exaggeration when faced with the two stale chunks of bread that he was allotted each day.

Those two stale chunks of bread were the _entirety_ of what he was allotted.

It was clear from day one that Mithos and Lloyd were at an obvious standoff when it came to any kind of resolution regarding the Exsphere. Lloyd spurned Mithos' offer day in and out. He maintained his unfailing determination to do the right thing, and this brand of self-righteousness fanned the flames of his stubbornness. Mithos found that the boy seemed firmly impressed by the idea that his decision in this was somehow a matter of justice or altruism – two very different things in Mithos' eyes – or some other kind of convoluted ideal. But just as justice was absolute, Mithos, too, did not compromise. He was as inflexible as a knife blade, with an unctuous firmness all his own. Over time, Mithos decided that the best course of action was to exert more pressure on the young swordsman. Up until then, Lloyd hadn't been treated like a proper prisoner. Even though he was being held against his will, his physical needs were unquestionably met. He was well cared for, and he was healthy. Even Kratos had seen that, which is probably why the Seraph hadn't posed more of a problem for Mithos. So, on one unsuspecting day, Mithos ordered a stop on all of Lloyd's cell meals. The Desians were told only one exception to this edict, which was that Lloyd would be given a wedge of bread in the morning and a wedge of bread at night, usually delivered with a cup of warm water. Those two pieces of bread were to make up the whole of his daily ration.

Needless to say, Lloyd didn't take too well to the new punishment. He'd already traded his freedom for iron bars. Now he was meant to sacrifice soundness of body. At first, he wanted to fight against the mandate. He wanted to resist Mithos altogether by flat-out rejecting the pitiable morsels. Upon later evaluation, however, he found that resisting would do him more harm than good. He wouldn't be able to refuse food forever. If two slices of bread were all that he was going to get, he'd better take them rather than force his body into malnourishment any sooner than it was inevitably going to be.

It was an interesting experiment for Mithos. Lloyd needed to be kept alive, but he could starve the boy for a week or perhaps two. Or longer. It had been over three weeks now, actually. The fire in Lloyd's eyes was a little less there. The shining hair was a little more brittle. The color in his face was draining. But most noticeable was the lethargy. Lloyd adapted specific habits to make his life more bearable, habits like not drinking his water before he finished his hard bread or else he'd be thirsty for the remainder of the day or night – and he was thirsty too often as it was. Moreover, when the Desians came for him, he was frequently found curled on his side or stomach on the cell pallet. If Lloyd was unconscious, he didn't feel hunger. To conserve energy and flee the acute pain that gnawed away at his empty belly, Lloyd tried to sleep as much as he could. Sometimes he managed to sleep away entire days and nights. But when Lloyd was brought to his summons, Mithos noticed the lethargy more and more. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Lloyd to shake off as he was sapped of his energy.

Even this morning, Lloyd seemed more dazed than he'd been just yesterday. He was a fool for not giving in. It would be so simple.

Mithos hadn't counted on Lloyd's resilience.

"Yggdrasill—"

"_Lord_—"

"—it is unmistakably my answer."

Mithos regarded Lloyd with a levelling stare.

Lloyd didn't mind the silence in the least.

"I didn't want this for you."

Lloyd still clung to his silence, not sure that he believed the man.

"You are starving away." Mithos folded his arms across his chest in a pose that Lloyd found similar to Kratos'. "Would you really die for this purpose?"

Lloyd wasn't sure that he would. He wanted to open his mouth and ask the one question that burned brightest above all others, the question that took many forms but was still the same question._**Why don't you just take it from me? Why don't you take the Exsphere yourself?**_ But Lloyd never voiced that question. He was half-afraid that Mithos _would_ take the Exsphere if he reminded him of the option. Part of Lloyd was sure that there must be a reason why Mithos hadn't pursued that route, although it seemed like the easiest thing in the world to do. None of this starving and holding and drilling – he could just take it. _**Why haven't you? Is it because of Kratos? Is that it?**_ Did Mithos have some pledge to the father when it came to the son? Or was it because Lloyd was a human, too dirty for Mithos to touch? Or was Lloyd something worse than human?

Lloyd took Mithos' question as rhetorical. Instead of answering, he said, "Let me go."

"I will, sans Exsphere."

"You live just fine without it."

"As well you would."

"It's mine."

"It isn't."

Lloyd's stomach gave another distinct twinge. He sighed again. It was turning into another of their circular arguments. In other words, a waste of time and breath. "Where is Kratos?" Lloyd asked, offhandedly.

If Mithos was surprised at the question, he didn't show it. "That's none of your concern."

"It is. He's my father." It was a card that Lloyd had never played before, and he wasn't sure why he was playing it now. He certainly didn't want to hide behind Kratos – for lack of any other way to put it – and he knew that Mithos couldn't be intimidated, but there was a rash and clandestine urge to tier himself. Mithos didn't like it, and maybe that was the only reason why Lloyd said it. Mithos kept Kratos away. But, whether Mithos liked it or not, Lloyd was a matter of blood – whether Anna's or Kratos', whosever. Even if Mithos called his bluff – and he likely would – what trumped all was that the Exsphere came to _Lloyd_.

"He can't save you, if that's what you're thinking."

"I don't think that you know my father very well," Lloyd edged in.

That was exactly what Mithos hated to hear. Hit the nail right on the head.

"Guards!" Mithos sounded, and the Desians were there in a heartbeat.

"You're mad," Lloyd heard himself whisper from far away. He was lightheaded, oh so lightheaded. He reminded himself again to stop turning his head too quickly. It did wonders on his vision.

"Take him away."

The two guards stepped forward and clasped Lloyd, one on each arm, and led him away without a struggle.

He was _so hungry_.

* * *

The boy lay on his side, legs curled just so in a mimicry of the fetal position. He was silently biding his time. The bread sat like a rock in his stomach yet would all too quickly be digested, leaving him with an empty feeling, a needy feeling, a feeling of wanting _more_. Sometimes it was worse than hurting but, no matter what, Lloyd's pain was always replaced by that emptiness just after eating his ration. That was fine and good with him for falling asleep before the pain came back.

He'd managed somehow to remove his boots, unsure of where the energy came from for that little expenditure. It was dark and still, and his breath wouldn't have bothered even a dead leaf. He hated being there, with nothing to do and without the means to do nothing. It made time pass slowly, agonizingly slowly. It forced his attention on his hunger, sporadic muscle spasms, and heavy body that wasn't actually heavy at all. But he tried not to think of anything as he lay there, succumbing to sleep.

That was how Yuan found him. One moment, Lloyd was alone. The next moment, the man was there beyond the cell, with the flash of cold light just behind him that polished the back of his boots and cast him in a shadowed nimbus. All Yuan could see was Lloyd's curled back as he laid facing away from the bars.

"Lloyd."

Dark, watery eyes of deep walnut flickered open. No other response.

"Lloyd?"

Not a movement. The owner of the name stared vacantly at the wall as he made up his groggy mind on whether he was awake or not.

Yuan guessed that the boy was asleep until Lloyd finally rolled over and stared near-about Yuan's direction long enough for him to bring the half-elf into focus through the cobweb of bars.

Their eyes met.

"Are you well?" The question sounded a trifle odd coming from Yuan's lips, but he felt compelled to ask. There was something weird about the boy tonight, something a little more than disordered but a little less than to be considered disarray.

Lloyd lifted his head up so slowly that it seemed dopey. "Woke me up," Lloyd mumbled. He sounded very drowsy.

"I'm sorry."

"S'okay." And Lloyd rolled himself up into a sitting position. Instantly, he regretted the action. His vision spun as sideways floor met vertical bars. The lightheadedness was probably the most annoying part of the whole thing. Grinding his teeth, he pressed his knuckles against his forehead. His body was still hunched like he'd be jumping to his feet at any moment, but his spare hand reached down to the floor to brace himself against the reeling.

Yuan watched him conspicuously. "You are ill."

A weak chuckle came from somewhere behind Lloyd's flat palm as he slid his hand down his face. "I'm fine."

"If by fine you mean stupid, I couldn't agree more." Beryl-green eyes held Lloyd in seraphic rumination. The boy was abnormally dimwitted tonight._**What did he do to you?**_

That seemed to clear Lloyd's head a bit – or at least sting his pride. He shot Yuan an irritated, sulky glare that Yuan had earned countless times before from Kratos. "Where've you been?" Lloyd rasped, while ever-so-slowly rising to his feet to prove a point.

It was also just like Kratos to change the subject when provoked.

"Mizuho," Yuan answered simply. Over time, he was finding less and less reason to hide things from Lloyd. The boy knew enough to do him in, so what else was there to hide compared to that?

Lloyd, leaning with an entire arm against the wall, looked leerily off to the side at Yuan. "How did you know where Mizuho was?"

He must not have been thinking. It was a dumb question to ask of anyone in Cruxis, really, even if the location of Mizuho was classified.

Yuan miraculously did not call Lloyd out on the slight of mind. He sufficed to respond with, "You can see a lot from the sky."

"Oh," was all that Lloyd managed. He carefully removed his arm from the wall and balanced on his feet. He felt his heartbeat thrumming like a hummingbird's wings just beneath his throat, flighty and light. His whole body ached, but especially his back. Malnourished, it seemed that his joints were the first to go. They ached something fierce. Then a funny feeling took his limbs. But, ouch, his back, whether straight or slouched… "Did you— no, nevermind."

"Did I what?" Yuan queried, watching the boy stand as if he didn't trust his own two legs. He looked taller than Yuan remembered, but maybe that was a trick of the light or the shock of his hair or the way he looked suddenly thin with his clothes hanging against him. Yuan was intent on Lloyd's actions or, as it was, inactions. There was something undeniably wrong here. Lloyd moved too carefully, yet not jerkily, too slowly, yet not circumspectly. He seemed to keep his body as rigid as possible, locking his joints straight, almost like he was stretching without actually doing so.

"Did you see Sheena?"

Yuan smiled dryly. "She has been busy."

Trying to find the good humor in that smile made Lloyd's eyes water in the dimness. Then, like some kind of overgrown red cat, Lloyd slunk to the cell bars, wrapped his hands tightly around them, and slid his feet behind him as he attempted to uncurl his aching spine and soothe his back.

Fair eyes watched him stretch.

"Why'd you have to go to Mizuho?" Lloyd straightened up again at the bars and looked expectantly at Yuan who was now a breath and three handspans away from him.

Yuan's first assumption of the boy had been proved correct. Up close and standing, it was easy to measure. Lloyd _was_ taller than when he'd last seen him. But he was dirtier, too. And his cheeks looked pasty. "For diplomacy, you could say."

Lloyd eyed him askance in dark brown scrutiny. A diplomat would have to deal with people, and Yuan seemed very much a deskwork kind of man.

"Are you surprised?"

"A little," Lloyd admitted.

Yuan nodded, seemingly satisfied about something. "Kratos usually plays ambassador."

"_Kratos_?"

The honest amusement in the half-elf's smile seemed out of place in his features. "Believe it or not, Kratos is best for the role. In truth, he is first choice to me." Yuan's smile grew at the dumbfounded expression on Lloyd's face. "Lord Yggdrasill prefers to dispatch him for emissary duties and hands-on assignments, including the World Regeneration Journey. Unfortunately for us, Kratos isn't finished his work on Derris-Kharlan."

"He's been there an awfully long time," Lloyd speculated.

"It's a long mission. He's on Phase Two now."

Lloyd lowered his dark stare and began picking at the bars. He pondered asking Yuan just what it was that Kratos was doing or if he should wait for Kratos to finally tell him. Instead, he found a different question for his visitor. "What do you want with Mizuho?"

"You ask me what _I_ want?" Yuan ran fingers through hair that was a straight, sky-colored waterfall. "Mizuho has a very efficient information network that does not exclude Sylvarant. If you recall, that is how Sheena knew Sylvarant's Journey of World Regeneration had begun. That network would be… invaluable… to the Renegades. It would be independent of Cruxis eyes-and-ears."

Lloyd's hand suddenly came away from the bars to rub at eyes flecked with weariness and double-vision. "After everything, what are you fighting against? Cruxis can't hurt anybody now – well, except for me." Lloyd hesitated when Yuan gave him a sharp look, but he just narrowed his eyes right back at him and went on. "Yet you haven't disbanded the Renegades."

"Quite the opposite. I'm thinking of a new base in league with Mizuho. They are hard negotiators, though."

"What does Yggdrasill want with Mizuho?"

"He thinks that they're something like us. Mizuho functions apart from society. On the surface, they don't appear to tithe to any government."

"So he thinks that something can be gained through them?"

"Through them or from them. It doesn't really matter; he doesn't need them, but he's going through the exercise."

"How can you approach them as both Yuan of Cruxis and Yuan of the Renegades?"

"Always so many questions," Yuan brandished his sarcasm like an ever-present, ever-concealed weapon, but he answered Lloyd. "Yuan of Cruxis speaks to their chief. Yuan of the Renegades speaks to Sheena."

"So she's there," Lloyd rubbed his eyes again and sighed, moving to lean against the cell door. "I don't see how she wouldn't blow your cover."

"She knows that you're here."

He stiffened. "Are you using me in a blackmail scheme?"

Instead of acting affronted, Yuan spoke calmly, with a kindness that somewhat approximated devotion. His eyes were grave emeralds, his expression open and reflective. "No, Lloyd, I'm not like Lord Yggdrasill. You aren't a pawn to me. You are the son of my friend."

Lloyd just stared, letting Yuan's words wash over him. They felt… wonderful. He didn't know how to react. He just hung his head, stringy brown hair falling over his forehead like wilting flowers. He let his shoulders droop even more, for all the world resembling an unwanted thing, a defeated warrior who'd accidentally gained an allegiance and couldn't believe his luck.

Though Lloyd's bangs hid some of him, Yuan surveyed sallow skin and glassy eyes. "How have you been?" He was ready to get to the bottom of Lloyd's oddness.

"Sleepy. And hungry." Lloyd leaned his weight against the bars, his weariness overpowering him all at once. It was undeniably better when he had someone there to talk to. It was easier to ignore the demands of his body when he was distracted. That's why he swore that the boredom of being locked up in a cell exacerbated his situation a hundred times over.

"You look tired."

"Mmhmm, but mostly hungry." He shifted skittishly for some reason before lifting his face to Yuan. "Yggdrasill wants to starve me to death."

The Seraph perked a brow, in classic form. "Come again?"

"Won't give me anything other than a few pieces of bread and some water." Lloyd wiped tiny beads of sweat from his forehead.

Suddenly, Yuan understood everything. Lloyd's erraticism was like wet ink on paper, standing out in bold lines, and now Yuan could read it. "How long has it been like this?"

"I don't know."

"You don't remember?"

"Nah." But then Lloyd grinned lopsidedly, in spite of all his physical discomfort. "But I'm fine, Yuan. Small price to pay for my mom's Exsphere, huh?" And Lloyd clapped his right hand over his Exphere in a gesture that physically reinforced his success.

"If you say so," Yuan glossed. "You don't look alright," he added.

"I can't help it," Lloyd shrugged. "I'm hungry and tired... and _hungry_. It's not my fault." And that was the closest to an actual complaint that Lloyd Irving would produce. He was enduring this trial for a reason. Instead of assuming any help from Yuan, he kept Yuan in the proper context of Cruxis. Yuan was thankful for that, for the strange and somewhat surprising covenant that Lloyd had established with him, because he didn't want to run out on Lloyd the way that Kratos had. Lloyd chose not to unload on the half-elf. He chose not to ask for a thing. He was doing this of his own free will – doing it "right," as Lloyd said. The boy was strong.

Yuan jerked his head in a clipped nod. Lloyd could have whatever sympathy he could find in the accordable gesture. "He hasn't hurt you, though?"

"No."

"Are you sleeping at all?"

"Yeah, but I'm still tired."

It was obvious that the boy had been surviving on low-energy. He was wearing out just by talking.

"Sorry," Lloyd put in, translating Yuan's silence as having offended him somehow.

"It's okay. You get back to sleep."

It was time for the Seraph to go. This time, the boy wouldn't argue.

"I'll try." Again, Lloyd grinned. He wouldn't give up.

"We'll see each other again. Count on it, Irving."

"Yessir. I will."

He let him be who he was. He let him just _be_.

"Til then."

"Goodbye."


	8. Chapter 8

Straggly, loose hair of runaway umber lay haggard, touching ears in uncombed wisps and falling limp against a face pallid except for the carrot-skin flush that ruddied its cheeks in a mayday sign of ill health. The uncombed strands broached his temples and hooded slit eyes, eyes that were so washed out that they barely kept even an anemic preservation of life. His arms were tangled with his legs as he lay on his side, and what little brawn his muscles boasted matched the consistency of jelly. A pain rooted deep within the bone marrows of his legs was keeping him both sufficiently conscious and sufficiently tormented; when it wasn't one thing, it was another. But those febrile eyes – what could be seen of them – remained on the prized jewel affixed to his left hand. His mother's Exsphere, throe of her soul and the disputed object of his oral skirmishes with Mithos. His cracked lips could still offer the ghost of a smile over his custody of it.

Lloyd Irving wasn't sure if this was what it felt like to die. It was so… uneventful and dragging, like time on a leash. Lloyd had always imagined that his demise would be a transgression of epic proportions, like a fight to the death or something similarly heat-of-the-moment. He always imagined that he'd go out kicking and screaming, valiantly and unafraid and with his wits about him. He never thought that he'd die from the inside out. And, above all else, he never imagined that he'd die alone. Nobody should ever have to die alone. This single notion summoned strong images of Colette, images that whorled like butterfly wings around the fringes of his lucidity. Her golden face was framed holy in his mind by a backdrop of memories as he lay quietly.

He wished that he had a blanket. It was a completely random, completely distinct pining, separate from all other present needs. Lloyd wasn't cold – again, the cell was well insulated – but he wanted that kind of closure at the end of a day. He wanted to wrap himself in a blanket, cocooned against the world, and cozy with reminiscence; to pretend up a precursor of the perfect night, a sunset exploding with orange melodrama, from the shelter of his swaddle. He wanted to pretend routine comfort, pretend to be freshly bathed and settled down in his own bed back home after a good day, an even better dinner, and Dirk—

With spasming suddenness, Lloyd arched his back, pulling his spine forcefully taut and splaying himself out on the cell floor. The previous position had become uncomfortable, as did the course of thought. Best to reset both. After the rather violent posturing episode, he rolled himself up into a ball again, looping his arms through his legs once more. It seemed that his back would get no relief, but he was satisfied for the time being, besides the metallic taste of his own metabolism in his mouth, and why did his legs hurt so much? They'd been hurting him off and on for weeks. But he wouldn't complain about it. He'd said nothing to Yuan. Yuan's visits were too few and far between anyway. To Lloyd, at least. Lloyd considered every visit a rarity. Company was just another insatiable craving, good for segmenting the boredom of being locked in a cell. But Yuan had to manage his administrative duties and Martel knew what else. Lloyd understood that. He knew that Yuan was often sent out now, and sometimes it was days and sometimes it was weeks between his visits. Some nights he'd magically be there, taking his post outside Lloyd's cell. Sometimes he wouldn't say much at all. Other times he'd talk later into the night. Some nights Lloyd would pester him for every mundane detail— Do they still sell Mythril Rings at Sybak shops? Was it cloudy today? What colors were in that banner crest? Other nights Lloyd would only lay there, still, mostly unresponsive but listening. Yuan could always tell when he was still listening.

The boy pushed himself up and ignored his lapse of equilibrium long enough to scrabble over to the wall and sit his back against it. Anytime he began feeling too transparent, he made himself move. This wasn't to say that he'd abandoned his strategy of sleeping through his time here, but anytime he wanted to feel sorry for himself or thought of the possibility that he wouldn't make it out of here alive, he'd force himself to react. He was still strong, a light shining in the darkness.

For a time, he sat there with legs bent and elbows perched loosely atop bruised knees. His clothes were dirty – _he_ was dirty – but for some reason his sweat was odorless. Maybe it was because he didn't have anything unclean in him for his body to expel. He didn't have anything in him _period_. Lloyd cracked each knuckle of each hand. He yawned, sat there until his stomach cramped again, and wondered how small a stomach could shrink. Not enough, if his hunger was any indication. It was more like an all-encompassing famishment now, not to mention the aches. His body would only be at peace for the tiniest bouts at a time.

Lloyd stretched his arms upward, shrugging his shoulders into the wall until he'd maneuvered his body back down onto the floor. Then, with his arms over his head, he pushed the wall, stretched his legs and back, and then went limp again. This scored another few moments of bodily solace. It seemed that, when conscious, agony seized his body in jets of vengeance unless he continually stretched.

The cycle repeated itself through the next hour. And the next. Eventually, Lloyd was back at the beginning, wherever the beginning was. All he knew was that he was so hungry, and he hurt. His joints ached. His stomach rumbled. His brows furrowed as he cringed. At some point, he slipped back into lethargy and remained in that comatose state for the rest of the day.

Until the guards came for him.

The rattling of deadbolt iron surfaced his consciousness, stringing it together like the beads of a necklace.

"Up and at 'em. Lord Yggdrasill is ready for you." Surely the guards were bored of this, too. They played it by rote now.

If at all possible, Lloyd scrunched his body even more, hugging his knees.

"Up, up." The shuffle of boots came closer.

Lloyd's moan was his response. He just wanted to be left alone. Rotting in a prison with a stomachful of bread was more desirable than spatting with Yggdrasill. But mercy would extend no promises. Strong arms found him with vice-like grips.

The Desians didn't know much about their prisoner. They didn't know specifically what Yggdrasill wanted from him, for Lloyd's daily discourses with him were conducted in private. But they knew that he was a special prisoner, that he was on a restricted diet, and that he'd been there for months that seemed like ages. They knew that he'd been brought in a boy and painstakingly broken in like some animal, he bruised easily – so take care with handling him – and there had to be something more sustaining him besides just bread. An inner courage, perhaps.

"It wouldn't be a bad thing for you to help yourself a little." The Desian with the scarred face again, then.

Lloyd was forced to his feet, and he felt his throat drop when he was overtaken by dizziness and unable to pull a steady breath. He gasped for all he was worth, inflated his lungs, and felt stitches in his side. Black stars… Oh. He was going to fall...

"Hey!— I got him."

Lloyd squeezed his hands to find that his fingers were numb. Yet his nose was cold, not numb. Strangely enough, it was the only part of himself that he could feel.

"Are you with us? Here, arm over my shoulder."

"Bony thing, isn't he?"

"I'm… fine."

Both guards' heads snapped down to their mouse-haired captive. His voice was quiet and scratchy-sounding to the point where they would have missed it if it weren't for proximity.

"Just… please… Let go. I-I need space."

They eased off him and, quick as that, Lloyd bowed over with his hands on his knees and heaved air as he retched. The sweat was there again, on his forehead. His insides felt as knotted as ribbons fit for a queen's birthday gift. Nothing came up except for bile and a string of saliva.

The guards gave him a moment.

Then, straightening back up, Lloyd gave them a dilapidated grin. "Okay. I'm ready to go."

* * *

"I have been lenient."

No response.

"I have been patient."

Nothing beyond the darkness of sealed eyelids and Mithos' voice bearing somewhere just in front of him.

"I have treated you indulgently."

Lloyd opened his eyes, rather dubiously, at that. Stark brown irises and slightly unfocused pupils discredited Mithos' claim. If this was Mithos' version of indulgent, Lloyd didn't want to discover his true severity.

Mithos turned around to him, satin hair draping perfectly over his shoulders in a golden current – it reminded Lloyd of morning sunlight over Thoda Dock – and honed in on the familiar lethargy in his prisoner's eyes. Like a beacon, it flagged Lloyd's sub- state of being. He was sluggish, shaggy, clumsy in thought and body. More often than not, he was silent to cope with these tricky circumstances or, perhaps, to contend with them. Lloyd didn't like it that he was losing track of time during his more common stupors where everything else came second to the harrowing sensations in his own body that made it feel like he was shutting down and dying. Much of his part in conversations with Mithos came out more as afterthoughts in a haziness of dulled, indistinct thinking. It had its cracks, but Lloyd broke through them less and less in front of the Seraph. Gradually, Mithos stopped giving Lloyd's spunk its due, and he respected his perseverance even less. Both seemed to annoy him lately.

"Stand like a man befitting my company," Mithos snapped, never quite yelling at him.

Lloyd erased his slouch.

The Cruxis leader watched him with an intensity that left the boy feeling high and dry. He evaluated Lloyd. Of course, he didn't like what he saw. Lloyd was a far cry from dignity. Slate grey pants were worn so thin – probably from his daily writhing on the floor of his cell – not to mention ill-fitting; Lloyd had gotten taller, and his knees didn't match his pants just right, and it made his thinness border on gangling. How the boy could grow at all with zero nutrition was a case in itself. To Mithos, he was like a weed. It was unfortunate, but Lloyd actually did resemble his father. He was a miniature Kratos, a fledgling Aurion. Yes, a weed. Even though his face was pale like an overcast sky, sometimes his eyes glittered darkly with chances of intelligent thought. His hair was messy, giving him the appearance of having just awakened. For some reason, this particular detail trampled Mithos' nerves. On top of everything else, Lloyd had somehow scuffed his boots. How, Mithos couldn't guess. It wasn't as though Lloyd had the opportunity to race through cities. Altogether, the boy was an exhibition of neglect.

"You've become slothful," Mithos berated him. "Take a look at yourself."

Unwittingly, Lloyd tried to. He glanced down at himself, but the only thing of which he took any real notice was his Exsphere. It seemed to stand out, as always.

"I will not condone sleeping all day. It's intolerable, and I will not have it."

The boy only blinked stupidly. He was acquainted with that sharp tone of irritation. He could tell that he had displeased Mithos but couldn't understand precisely how he'd done it.

Mithos scanned Lloyd. Then, without further ado, he took the liberty of shocking Lloyd's senses into gear for him. He'd seen enough.

"I'm sending you to the kitchens."

Lloyd's eyes were wide awake in the flash of a second. "What?" he heard himself question.

Mithos gave him a cutting look but repeated himself all the same. "You will be put to work in the kitchens, alongside Desians."

Uncertainty. Abashment.

"Do not mistake the nature of your punishment; your fare remains the bread. You will attend to meals, and not a crumb for yourself. Scullery duties are to replace these supplementary sleeping hours."

"What…?" Lloyd was dumbfounded. Dumbfounded and fazed. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, so he wasn't sure that he was actually hearing it. Abandoning the strict regiment of cell-Yggdrasill-cell-Yggdrasill-cell would ordinarily be a welcome invitation, but this was terribly cruel.

Mithos stepped closer to Lloyd and stared down into the face of tired confusion. "It would be poor stewardship, indeed, to waste a perfectly able body."

He knew that he ought to protest. He also knew where that would get him. This wasn't fair. The tired confusion was quickly transforming into tired outrage. _Stewardship_? He was not a piece of property! He was Lloyd Irving, hungry, tired, and in the flesh! Surely, Mithos couldn't be serious.

"Until you render to me what is mine, nothing changes. We'll see how you get along down there."

Mithos flicked his wrist, and the guards came.

"That's not fair!" Lloyd burst out, even as he elbowed the guards. His anger surged forth like an irascible tornado. It was complete and legitimate, certainly heaping helpings of more attitude than had been directed toward Mithos in such a long time. Debilitated as Lloyd was, he was suddenly animated, dynamic, and absolutely against this new brand of punishment. It would drive him to madness sooner than boredom would. Good Spirits, he was starving! How could he work at all, let alone with food that he wouldn't be allowed to taste?

"Give me the Exsphere."

"No! It's mine!"

"Accompany him to the kitchens. Pass the message that I've sent him to task."

"I'm not a maid!"

"If a weed grows over my path, I uproot and displace it. Now take him away."

Lloyd stopped struggling against the bodies that jostled him away so easily and declared war on Mithos with his glare. "No matter how much you piss me off, you're never getting my Exsphere."

"_Take him away_."

* * *

It became quickly apparent that he wasn't being taken back to his cell. Lloyd was half-led and half-pushed down mazes of hallways. Some turns gave way to varnished ramps that deposited the trio lower into the bowels of Centrum. For the first time, Lloyd really got the feel that the place was huge, at least as big as a city, even if a structurally compressed one. He would've just as easily lost his way by now if he weren't being steered. This was the most walking that Lloyd had done in forever. He felt weak, as usual, and as if his ankles and wrists were bound by strips of rubber hose. The pace was fair, though. The guards weren't quite sure how to treat him. They gathered that he had somehow nettled Mithos enough to incite a penance, but they were given no orders in the way of bodily harm. They tried their best to be generous but were met halfway by Lloyd's dark mood.

At one point, he pitched away from them through something that looked like an unfurnished, bowl-shaped lobby, and when one of them caught him by his arm, Lloyd angrily shook him off, careening dizzily off to one side as a result.

"Easy, child," came the surprisingly gentle voice, like a trainer calming a skittish colt. The Desian truly sounded like he meant neither harm, nor disrespect toward Lloyd.

"I'm not a child. I make my own choices, and I choose to walk by myself," Lloyd spat, notwithstanding a kid's petulance. He was sullen, fairly bristling, and, although he knew that there was no escaping this place, he felt like he had to greet his misery on his own two legs, even if they weren't as stable as they once were.

They carried onward, and the first thing of which he soon became aware was the cacophony. The kitchens were ahead, and they were _loud_.

The second thing that hit him, like a bag of bricks in the gut, was the smell. Lloyd began to salivate immediately, and he groaned when his empty stomach twisted and growled. He nearly toppled over onto his knees under the spell of the fragrances wafting down the hall to him. This was going to be torture. Where had his anger gone? He was defenseless without it. And they were getting closer and closer.

They burst forth upon a room that stretched long and tall, with heavy tables spanning most of its length – Lloyd counted at least four – and hundreds of Desians. It was madness, like an alehouse or cafeteria of some sort. He sucked in his breath as he gave the room a onceover. There was clatter and clutter, silver and butter, stains and sauce and gravy and _food_ on the tables.

Lloyd understood, then. These were the kitchens of an army. That single thought leeched him of his bravery.

He'd never seen so many Desians in one place. Aside from the grunt work, Desians truly were the military of Cruxis. Scattered across Sylvarant, they'd never seemed as formidable a host as they did now, all in one place – at least, as many as this single room could contain. It was… frightening, for one, that any power had such a force at its disposal. They were all here in Tethe'alla, just as Yuan had told him. There must be apartments somewhere in Centrum to accommodate all of them.

Suddenly cooperative, or at least docile, Lloyd was led into another room similar to the first, even while his brain exploded in his head at what all this meant. The second room was just as noisy, with conversations more than threading the atmosphere. Here, people laughed, and Lloyd blinked at the forgotten sound. He gave no trouble in following the guards now, weaving through intermittent throngs, sometimes steady, sometimes swaying. He smelled meat. It made his stomach do somersaults, it was so wonderful. And terrible because it wasn't for him. He found himself standing in place before he even realized that he had ever stopped. His guards had left him a few strides behind. When he glanced over, Lloyd saw that they were talking to a big, broad man with curly bright hair and pointing back at him. They must've had some confidence that he wouldn't turn tail and run because they were definitely more lax here when it came to bullying him. Someone bumped into him, and he lurched forward, but when he looked up, the bright-haired man was standing over him.

"Fancy Lord Yggdrasill explicitly sending me a scullion – and an emaciated human one, of all kinds."

Lloyd only stared at him.

"I don't want your name, your past, or why you're here. Can you cook?"

"Uh, I…"

"Yes or no. It's not a hard question."

"Not really, no…" Lloyd admitted, truthfully.

"Can you use one of these?" the man asked before shoving a brown dish brush into Lloyd's chest.

Lloyd stumbled backward another step and grasped the brush. "Sure…" He answered, hesitantly.

The man clapped his hands on Lloyd's shoulders and propelled him into another room. This one had a different smell: grease, soap suds, and heat. He was promptly directed to a sink that was large enough to fit three crouched Lloyds but instead held multiple towers of dishes.

"Merry met, scullion. Have at it."

As if in a dream, Lloyd lifted the first plate, dipped his brush into the bath of tepid, soapy water, and began to scrub.

* * *

In the dining room of a moderately classy Meltokio inn sat two companions, a man and a woman, absorbed in discussion if not in their food.

At least, the woman was.

"Why don't you think that it's important?"

The man snorted, amused, and then began choking on his mouthful of cod.

The woman sighed and gave his back a strong thump.

"You're absolutely right," he began, seriously. "It is imperative that all creatures, great and small, wise and wonderful, see things a woman's way." Then he laughed and coughed in his laughter.

"Zelos!" She gave him another thump on the back for good measure.

"Ouch— Okay, okay! I'm listening."

Sheena Fujibayashi narrowed her fine eyes upon the man who was making himself purposely difficult.

"Yuan came to me."

"Don't care. Don't like the guy and don't care."

"They have Lloyd, Zelos."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Does it matter?"

"Does it?"

The woman dropped her tensed hand on the table. She chipped at the wood with her nails, searching her mind for the reason why Zelos saw fit to make himself so unapproachable. He had retreated into his world since their Journey with the Sylvarantis ended. Sheena hadn't spoken to him since. He seemed to prefer it that way.

She lowered her head, bangs falling over her eyes in an ebony spray. "Look, you're that whisper in the King's ear. You can make him listen. You can sway him."

"'Fraid I'm fresh out of obligations, darlin'." Zelos' tone seemed even more guarded than only moments before.

She glanced up at him and saw a warning there. His lips were pressed bloodlessly together, as though he were being backed into a corner and didn't like it. Lightning blue eyes avoided her.

"Because you'll never need the Cruxis Crystal? The monarchy and the Church gave birth, and you are the child."

"Stop it," Zelos hissed, and, just like that, Sheena knew that she had crossed an unmistakable boundary. She watched Zelos as he ran a hand through hair that arrested Sheena's eyes with its confounded brightness. It fell against his brow, and it was the most luscious cherry color that could ever be found on an artist's palette. Nature would be hard put to find a true-bred rival within Her own spectrum. His blushing hair fell to give way to inquisitive eyes, prominent cheekbones, and a sharp jaw. The planes of his face were quite elegant. Sheena had always thought so. All in all, he seemed thoroughly aristocratic to her – and he was supposed to be. He was also a hell of a teaser, which would ruin the entire classy image except that he more or less got away with it.

"You want me to start a war, sweetheart, and— no, shut up, don't beat around the bush with me, Sheena."

"Yuan wants to form an alliance between Mizuho and the Renegades."

This gave Zelos pause. "Yeah?"

"And Lloyd… There's something wrong, there."

"Way to break a guy's confidence. Lloyd would be crushed to hear that kind of sentiment about his more-than-generous visit to our side."

"Then you believe me."

"It's not that I don't believe you." Zelos lifted his tumbler to eye level and swirled the pear wine disinterestedly. "It's that they've done nothing to warrant that kind of retaliation."

Sheena frowned, a picture that made her face no less pretty. "What about the Provisional and all the unrest that it's brought?" She shook her head. Her raven strands brushed the sides of her face. "Foolish act."

"I don't like it either, Sheena," Zelos confirmed, then downed the rest of his drink. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. "And we're suffering for it more than you are."

Sheena studied him for a brief span of moments.

"We need to be together."

Zelos rubbed his face, hiding from her. "We are together," he grumbled, sounding as if she were an annoying relative that wouldn't go away.

"You know what I mean. All of us. We need to be united."

Again, Zelos became motionless.

"For Lloyd's sake, we need to be together. We need Colette."

"Why do we need her? Her Crystal?"

"She's the closest thing to an angel that we have. We thwarted Cruxis once. We can do it again."

"Whoa, whoa, you're getting ahead of yourself again. Cruxis isn't killing anybody this time. They're behaving."

"They took Lloyd from Sylvarant."

"And they took the Desians, too. They did them a favor, ya know."

Sheena fidgeted. There was a long, strained silence on her part.

Zelos set a full drink down in front of Sheena and patted her on the shoulder sympathetically, brotherly. "We wait."

* * *

"O Martel, exalted above this world and all others,

Mother Martel, nurturer of the earth and of all people, please watch over him."

She always prayed, and perhaps newer knowledge bred variations in the delivery, but it never stilled her belief in a Martel that was good and omnipotent.

"Please protect him."

Yellow hair, knees to floor, a child in earnest.

"Please clothe him."

Teardrops, heavy like crystal balls, coated eyelashes and bleached the beautiful face.

"Please shelter him."

Clasped fingers still trembled.

"Please sustain him."

Even in the darkest times.

"Please bring him back home."

* * *

And, still, above and beyond somewhere, Kratos Aurion kept himself to Mithos' rock.


	9. Chapter 9

He wasn't very careful, even though he knew how to be. He scraped wood against wood as he collected the bowls from the table. Many of them weren't even empty. This one had an unappetizing pool of white gunk caked to its bottom in a ring. It smelled like onions, and it had been left out just long enough to sediment into a crusting hardness of ex-chowder. Lloyd shook his head as he continued down the table. _That_ would be fun to wash. Next was one that held a grossly blended pile of orange mush that reminded him of pudding. But Lloyd knew what it had been before it was spoiled. He knew what was cooking today.

Lowering his head, Lloyd inhaled the cooled mash. "Sweet potatoes…" His stomach kicked him for that, and so he moved on.

Down the length of the teak, he dodged his stained, nimble hands unobtrusively between Desians to scoop up unused dishes, some chipped but adequate. A trencher, slick with blood and juices of undercooked animal, nearly slipped from Lloyd's grasping fingers.

"Lloyd," urged the person standing on the other side of the table. Lloyd didn't look up – knew better than to – but he followed the prompt with his eyes, followed the tan wrist as it marked the plate with a solitary sausage that looked half-chewed.

**Sausage! What a steal!** Meat usually was.

So deftly, so quickly, Lloyd plucked up the sausage length and deposited it in his mouth. It was so fast that his friend across the table hardly saw it happen though he was grinning like mad as he continued to move along with Lloyd, mirroring his work on the opposite side of the table as if nothing had happened. He picked up a pannikin and added it to his armload of dirty dishes.

The taste of meat exploded in Lloyd's mouth, causing his stomach to growl delightedly. He barely suppressed a moan of appreciation as he licked his moist lips. The sausage was on the spicy side – not to mention cold – but rich and juicy or cold and wet, it was a rarity all the same. Not that he had much to give, but he'd pay for a plate of beef with the shirt on his back, if he could. The boy ground the flavor out with his teeth. He was careful not to swallow it down too quickly but also careful not to savor it for too long. Best not coax Desian suspicion.

Over the past several weeks, Lloyd had learned the game of table duty. Cleaning up after meals soon became his preference because, simply put, he stole what he could steal when he could steal it. He had to be very, very careful not to get caught because Ranks ingratiated themselves with Grand Cardinals, Cook didn't dare cross Yggdrasill's express orders not to feed him, and everybody else seemed accountable to _someone_. Thus, Lloyd's activities were duly noted. Even on a good day he couldn't filch much, but nobody noticed the tiny fractions, the stolen scraps – not if they were leftovers. It wasn't nearly enough – Lloyd was a starving mess – but it was better than bread and bread alone. And so, sometimes a piece of broccoli mysteriously vanished from its plate as the dishes were collected for the sinks – or sometimes a finger mark stood out against the grease while said finger was licked clean by its human owner. Even in the kitchens he took his chances and drank of the tepid washwater to hold his thirst at bay, but it wasn't a sanitary practice, and it made his guts roil.

Although Lloyd's snatches weren't too traceable or too often, they were met with a much higher success rate when Osha was working with him. Osha let him know when he was in the clear. He watched Lloyd's back for leery eyes. It was very difficult for Lloyd to keep a straight face when his accomplice's grin grew wide over his little victories, but Osha was a good partner through all this.

Osha was the young Desian standing on the other side of the table. Uniquely named after an herb – although he claimed that he'd never once seen its leaves in all of his life – Osha was Lloyd's only friend in the Desian Quarters, though, arguably, Lloyd may have had more allies than he knew. The two had met in the kitchens on a day when Lloyd had to scratch char from cast iron skillets. Osha was on duty when he'd spotted Lloyd there and had made a particularly keen remark about how Lloyd would find Altamira if he dug long enough, to which Lloyd retorted that he preferred slave-drivers over tourists any day. After that, they hit it off capitally. Osha was four years older than Lloyd – by Desian military standards, a man – but he was sympathetic to Lloyd's plight and as facetious as a child when he decided to be. Lloyd didn't tell Osha the details or intricacies behind his punishment, yet the Desian still brothered Lloyd, adopting him as one of their own.

Of course, when it came down to it, there was a big difference between Osha and Lloyd, and that was that Osha was a free man while Lloyd was a prisoner.

Osha worked in the kitchens because it was his job. Unlike Lloyd, Osha was merely doing his part. It could've just as easily been duty of another kind in one of the higher levels of Centrum like so many others, but labor was labor, a part of individual livelihood in any society, and a crutch for the establishment. The Desians served Cruxis, but they weren't slaves to each other. They were a civilization. Centrum was a system or a machine – or a cross of both; a well-oiled city. Desians worked to perpetuate themselves as a whole, all effort convening for the greater good. It was collectivism, a very compressed approach of governing, and it seemed to work out despite the obvious prejudices.

Osha walked the plains of Tethe'alla every day, but Lloyd remained in the kitchens all day long as the Desians he served came and went.

Balancing a stacked tray, Lloyd doubled back toward the kitchens. Despite his lightheadedness, he hummed under his breath, a song that Colette used to sing. **She probably still does**, he thought, with more fondness than bitterness in spite of the way his life had turned out. He dumped his load neatly into one of the tubs before ambling back out into the hall and leaning his back solidly against the wall that separated kitchen from dining. He watched the activities silently like some kind of overlooked warden, sometimes stretching his aching back.

The Desians were equally divided about the human servant. His presence had become commonplace after a time, but he was clearly not one of them. Nevertheless, they knew how it felt to be cast out from Yggdrasill in perpetuum. Lloyd had merely joined their club of misapplication. This tied the Desians to him, if even a little. But, beyond even Desian disparagement, Lloyd was an identity of complete shame. He was a testament to Yggdrasill's power, so easily demoted in status, even below the likes of half-elves. Lloyd was a mystery to the Desians – a too-thin teenage human floating around their tables with his messy brown hair, a constant presence in their midst – but, because of his peculiar circumstances, a mystery to which they could relate. He kept his left hand wrapped, gave no last name – Cook had said that he didn't want to know it, hadn't he? – and if any Desians had made the connection of 'Lloyd' to 'Lloyd Irving,' they hadn't made a show of it, although Lloyd was quite sure that Halle's boasting had to have spread at least a little throughout the Quarters.

Lloyd stretched again, arching his back in a way that would ordinarily warrant a feeble pop and assuage his pain for a time. Exhaling tiredly, he slouched once more against the back wall, rubbing his left hand on instinct but then catching himself. His eyes were dark and enervated, and they found Osha stepping his way toward him with one of his grins in place for Lloyd and his hazel eyes ushering good will. Lloyd waited on the approach of the half-elf. Osha had darker skin than most of the Desians in Centrum. It made Lloyd wonder of his parents' union, which side was non-elf, and of what ancestry the non-elf contributed to the bloodline. He never asked though. Just like Osha didn't pry too deeply into his story.

Osha leaned into Lloyd with his left shoulder. "Off I go. How was—" But he was promptly interrupted.

"In here, boy!" The curly, bright-haired superior poked his head from the kitchens, demeaning Osha more than Lloyd with his gravelly glare, wielding it like a bullet that shot through anything in its path as it journeyed to its target. "Now!"

Lloyd pushed his weary body off the wall.

And Osha cringed. "He doesn't sound happy."

"He's just loud." Lloyd shrugged without a ruffle of concern. "Whatever it is, I can handle it. Go."

Osha leveled apprehensive eyes upon his young friend. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, sure, sure." And Lloyd turned toward the kitchens, noncommittally waving a hand to Osha in dismissal. The Desian had to know by now that Lloyd could take care of himself.

It was several degrees warmer by the first row of sinks. Steam saturated the air, and with it the smell of heated metal. The fumes were second nature to Lloyd now. He knew that at the end of the haze were pink fingers and clean containers. The lingering aroma of roast was here, too. Before Lloyd could speculate, he was confronted by his superior. Lloyd had heard some people call him Mace, but mostly everyone just called him Cook.

"I'm gonna need you tonight, boy." He only ever called him 'boy.'

"Tonight?"

"When finished with your… engagement—" for Cook didn't ask for the story behind Lloyd's situation, but he knew that the guard escort magically appeared in the kitchens for him at the same times every day. "—need you back here. Got preparations for tomorrow's feast."

"Feast? What's going on tomorrow?" Lloyd questioned, earning a calculated glare from Cook that was only superficially threatening to him.

"Since when do you ask questions, boy? There's a feast tomorrow for the higher-ups, and that's all you need know. They're calling upon our kitchens." Cook rubbed sticky curls from his forehead while sizing up his scullion. Lloyd's servitude was a great asset to him. The skinny boy was there all day to do anything and everything that needed doing, and that made all the difference to Cook's operation. Especially for an event like tomorrow's. "You can, ah, make it back here?"

Lloyd tilted his head to the side. He was being asked a question of context, even if it wasn't phrased as such. Cook didn't know what went on with his kitchen hand outside of his kitchens, didn't know if Lloyd was even allowed to answer for himself. But Lloyd didn't see why not. He could have the guards return him after his session with Mithos. He never had anything to do in his cell anyway. Truthfully, he didn't mind sticking around the kitchens. Besides, Cook's was a curious request, curiouser still the fact that he was depending on Lloyd for something.

His answer didn't take much thought. "Sure. No problem."

Cook gave him a severe look. It was borderline confused, with something that verged on gratitude. He left Lloyd standing there, and in another moment came stalking back with what looked like an oversized box tote which he shoved into Lloyd's grasp.

"You're finished. Go."

Lloyd blinked and compliantly wrapped his hands around the thing. "What?" It was only an hour before eight in the evening.

"Leave. Take that to the Station. Osha forgot to, so it's gotta be you."

Although Lloyd highly doubted that Osha 'forgot' anything, he nodded, recognizing the favor. Cook was being fair. He was letting Lloyd leave early since he'd agreed to pitch in extra hours tonight. And since the guards were not yet there to escort Lloyd, taking the trash to the Receptacle Station was a way to safeguard him through the Desian Quarters. He was merely running an errand for Cook.

"I'll see you later," Cook said, already walking away.

* * *

Lloyd strode airily down the passageway. His first few steps away from the kitchens had been timid. Uncertainty made him press his fingers tightly around the garbage tower until he pinched the grooves between his fingers. Stealing crumbs of food made him less nervous than _this_. When he reached the Receptacle Station, he slid the bag from the tower, deposited it in the chute, and added the tower to the receptacle stack. Lloyd didn't know how Centrum dealt with its waste. The Desian Station was close to the kitchens for purposes of convenience, but Lloyd didn't know if trash was taken from here to Tethe'alla and incinerated or if Centrum did its own processing or had a recycling system in place. Lloyd wouldn't be surprised if the latter was the case. Everything seemed to be internalized here.

He headed up a ramp, knowing the way back to his cell by heart. There was something wondrous about walking alone without guards hemming in his path. As if to proverbially squeeze every last thrill from the feeling, Lloyd stopped walking for a minute, just to relax into the awareness that he could. No guards prodded him forward. He wouldn't necessarily call it exhilarating, but it made him feel human again.

**What does **_**that**_** mean, anyway? Just because I work for Desians doesn't mean that I should feel like anything other than what I am.**

Pushing away this strange cast of racism, Lloyd continued walking. He caught his reflection on the polished floor. It warped it into contortions. His face was a shape, all soft, no angle, and dark pocks for his eyes and mouth. The effect was incongruous. Not human. Lloyd dug his knuckles into his eyes and rubbed them.

When he looked back up, however, he was met by a most surprising sight.

Yuan was walking the same stretch of hallway, and he was heading toward him. His blizzard-ice hair was tucked neatly behind his shoulders in its familiar hold, reckoning his eyes and closed face.

Lloyd's feet faltered their pace. It was strange to see Yuan in proper lighting – stark strange to see him at all! He must've just gotten back to Centrum from his latest trip.

The half-elf's expression emphasized nothing, but Lloyd's mind tripped over itself for excuses, especially because that was the same expression Kratos wore. That… _nothingness_ look that so many people misread. On Kratos' face, that look was counted as a cold fury that skirted everyone from his path. On Yuan's face, that look read more like he wanted to be left alone.

Yuan came to Lloyd in the hall, made as if to pass him. And as he passed, he uttered, "Follow me." No explanation whatsoever to go along with the command.

The boy pulled off to the side as Yuan brushed by. Then, after a beat, he followed the Seraph. The day was getting stranger and stranger, but it wouldn't be the first time that he blindly followed a head of Cruxis. There was Kratos Aurion's back, swirling remembered into his vision. They had been in Sylvarant, and Genis' voice was nothing more than a fuzzy hum in Lloyd's memory of the Journey, but he remembered Kratos' back – Kratos' ever-present back, with sharp edges of anatomy yielding to softer shapes by the setting sun, like in a picture book, and the dark descent of hair at his nape that mingled with the cloak of royal mauve. That familiar vision had always conjured a sense of security for Lloyd. Maybe for the rest of their group, too, because they had all followed after it.

Yuan moved similar to Kratos but with a different version of ease, like a second blueprint of the same model.

Lloyd held back several steps behind Yuan. They walked in silence through avenues of gleaming corridors and rises. The maze was a weave of footsteps, but Lloyd kept track of where he was, all the while looking hard at the back of the man ahead of him. Because it was Yuan, not Kratos. Lloyd trusted Yuan implicitly, but now the man had the chance to steer him wrong…

Yuan disappeared through an entryway on the left, Lloyd followed him, and Yuan closed them off from the rest of Centrum. Slowly, he turned round to face Lloyd. His eyes flashed a shamrock-colored victory. They bore into the boy without leniency or moderation.

Lloyd tensed.

And the crucial moment was when Yuan bared his smile. It was a small turning of his lips that, like always, referenced amusement, as if he'd just one-upped somebody. He opened his mouth and spoke:

"That's better."

It was one of those ambiguous statements that fell on either side of the tracks. _That's better_ that they had privacy now or _That's better_ because, for once, Lloyd Irving wasn't seeing him from behind bars. For the first time since the Journey of World Regeneration, Lloyd stood together with Yuan, right in front of him, breaths of naked air the only divide between them. Yuan took in the chafed, ungloved hands, the lankiness, Lloyd's worn clothes and knotty hair. He studied his face, up close, and though the cheekbones jutted out more than when he'd last seen him – and they made his eyes look huge, those deep castor swatches of Aurion reaction – he was still the Lloyd he'd known in Sylvarant.

More than just a little thrown off, Lloyd squeezed his left hand tightly over its wrap. He saw the warmth in Yuan's smile, almost like the mock impression of comradery, but he didn't know how to return it or what to do with himself. He knew that he was being picked apart by Yuan's stare, so he allowed it, for it had to be gotten over with. Yuan didn't touch him, but Lloyd still felt that he was being chewed over. He didn't know what the Seraph was thinking. All he knew was how weird it felt to be standing two paces away from the man. It was like meeting him for the first time. He was no longer a sealed-away character, a dark heap on the other side of a gate whose voice carried strains of fairytale stories about a world in which Lloyd lived but would likely never see again. No, now Yuan was personality unplugged and very real. He was a strong body, tall but not as broad as Lloyd's father, wrapped in a narrow tabard of sienna and taupe. Lloyd could feel it, feel the presence of the Cruxis Seraph. With Mithos, the aura often felt sultry. With Yuan, it was like a crispness, an authority that demanded a kind of terse orderliness. It didn't snatch away his nerve like it might have a lifetime ago because this was Yuan. _Yuan_, with all his subterfuge and idiosyncracies. This was the man who sat outside Lloyd's prison just to keep company with his frail mind and frailer body.

The tall man stepped forward.

As if his movement negotiated the ceasefire of their stares, Lloyd took another footstep into the room. "This your place?"

It was a T-setup and a fair-sized space for one man, though Lloyd had imagined it would be bigger, but Yuan seemed to prefer modest living in Centrum – modest for a Seraph, anyway. The carpet was an indulgence with its accents of dye and warm-grey scheme. A door was set at center in the back wall and probably led to sleeping quarters. There was a settee just beside the door, on the right side. It had arms and looked like the most comfortable thing Lloyd had witnessed during his long weeks of hard benches and wood. A divider panel hung sheer from the ceiling on the far end of the chamber. It was a sheet of colored strings and polyester, creating a mood for the rest of the flat. There were little things here and there that caught Lloyd's eyes: a desk with books, papers – probably treatises or reports, given Yuan's ambassadorial role – a sideboard with personal effects that Lloyd couldn't make out, something that looked like a compass but probably wasn't.

Lloyd did a slow turn, taking in his congenial surroundings. His eyes fell on the table on his left, near the front of the room—

—and widened with a jolt.

"You could've told me that I was interrupting your dinner," Lloyd said, abashed, forcing his hungry eyes away and his appetite down, though the damage had already been done.

Yuan strolled to the table, pretending to scrutinize the abundance of food. He absently selected a cooked string bean and, taking it between his fingers, took a tiny bite of it. Then he set it back down, and the blankness in his face delineated his disinterest.

"You're not."

Hard to believe, since the table was a spread of steaming dishes. There was chicken there – chicken! – with white gravy, whipped potatoes, steak and venison and ham, string beans and cooked vegetables. There was even fish and fruit and cabbage rolls. A pitcher of water was set at the head of the table. Condensation existentially communicated its cold temperature.

Lloyd's mouth watered – he couldn't help it – and he swung his head to gape at Yuan. The boy looked incredulous and ill. "I'm not?"

"It was prepared for you, Lloyd."

Lloyd wanted to scream at Yuan to cut it out, but this was too cruel to be a joke and not vague enough for Yuan's line of humor. He pitched a step toward Yuan, and Yuan noticed that the boy wasn't that much shorter than him when he set his shoulders straight.

Lloyd's voice rose in volume. "Me…?"

"My only regret is that it took this long to be able to do something for you."

The cell. The bars and latched gate and no means of easy interaction. The trips that separated them for time after time.

"You—! You _planned_ to bring me here today?" It was like Lloyd was plucked from the hall intentionally.

Yuan didn't smile, but somehow he looked pleased about Lloyd's giddy outburst. "Fate works in mysterious ways." Again, not quite an answer. "Eat."

Stupefied, Lloyd took a seat at the table. He brandished a fork, this time for eating, not for carrying to the sinks. Hesitation – and it took all of his willpower to keep himself from just digging in. This would be the first meal that Lloyd ate since early on in his abduction. "Are you sure you don't want any?" He locked his big eyes back on Yuan.

Yuan didn't have to look anywhere other than Lloyd's doe eyes for his answer. He didn't even have to reevaluate the poor state that Lloyd's body was in.

"Very sure." He even nodded his head this time.

After that, Lloyd helped himself. He tore into the meat first, like a carnivorous beast. _Meat_. Meat, meat, meat. Red meat, dark meat. It was beef that he craved in Centrum's lower-level kitchens, always and every day. A growing boy could only go so long without devouring the flesh of an animal, after all. Dwarves thought so, anyway. And the chicken… It was filling his small stomach faster than he would've liked, but he still ate. He ate to make up for all the time that he was without real food, and he ate to make up for all the time that he'd be without food in the future. The juices dripped onto his tongue, and he practically slurped the chicken skin off the breast. He tasted everything, every nuance of flavor that he'd missed for countless weeks. He could have cried at the miracle his taste buds produced. He started on two rolls, the second before finishing the first. Oh, let him be greedy. He'd already paid for it with the gratefulness in his heart. He wasn't sure about the strawberries and water. That is, he wasn't sure which was easier to gulp down, as, indeed, he practically swallowed the strawberries whole in his rush to take in as much as he could as fast as he could.

Yuan watched him for the first minute or two – never had he seen food disappear so quickly. This was the culmination of months of abuse, this skin-and-bones boy before him, and Yuan couldn't undo all of it in a single night. But he wished that he could. Yuan promptly removed himself from the scene. He disappeared somewhere beyond Lloyd's periphery. He could've been in the next room for all the boy cared.

The feast didn't take more than ten minutes – but a busy ten minutes they had been. The meats had been first, as much as he could eat without choking, and the fruits were second, and eventually Lloyd inhaled the vegetables, but he had slowed down by that point. Cold veggies were something that he occasionally stole from the kitchen tables, but he'd never been much of an advocate of vegetables.

When it was over – and dropping his not-dizzy head onto the table, with his shaggy, overgrown bangs competing for his line of sight – Lloyd cringed. "Agh. I ate too fast."

"I agree."

Lloyd opened one eye to regard Yuan as he reclaimed his position at the edge of the table.

"Then why didn't you stop me?"

"Because you wouldn't have listened. We both know that." And Yuan was right. He had considered skipping out on the steak, knowing it would be heavy on Lloyd's stomach. But, after everything, the boy was entitled to a steak, at least.

Shutting his eye again, Lloyd sighed contentedly. "This was… the most amazing thing I've ever been given in my life."

"Food?" Yuan queried, not without satisfaction in his smirk.

"Oh, definitely. You have no idea," Lloyd defended. "Feed me once and I'll be your best friend forever. I _love_ food."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Yuan, choosing to humor Lloyd. He ran one long finger across the tabletop and found it outstandingly free of grease.

Lloyd was ecstatic that his aches had all at once disappeared and left him comfortably drowsy. His body settled into frantic digestion, but his mind was calm, his headache gone. Mithos still stuck to battling Lloyd twice a day over his Exsphere, but even he could tell that Lloyd seemed to be faring better since beginning his work in the kitchens. In fact, Lloyd had thrived. It was amazing how a little mobility and change of scenery could serve as a dose of the right kind of medicine. Mithos wasn't stupid enough to believe that Lloyd wasn't sneaking food on his off chances, but, for whatever reason, he didn't bring it up during their sessions, even though Lloyd was more alert like he'd once been – and with that came his stubborn resistance.

Lloyd stood from the table and stretched a good stretch.

"Leaving so soon?"

Brown eyes searched rays of green. Yuan's voice was kept evenly buffered.

"I have a shift later tonight, but I was on my way to my cell when you ran into me. Mithos will send his summons soon."

"Stay as you'd like" was all that Yuan put in as he shifted across the room and straightened the papers on his desk. It was an unfamiliar strain of charity, coming from him. Mainly because it was downright cordial.

Lloyd surveyed the Seraph, unsure of what to say. He picked up that Yuan didn't charge him gratitude. Lloyd didn't need to say anything at all. In fact, Yuan seemed not to prefer his spoken thanks.

"Are those about the Provisional?" Lloyd suddenly asked of the papers in Yuan's hands.

Emeralds, interested but cautious, fixed on the gaunt teenager. The papers went still. "Now, where did you hear about a thing like that?" His tone was Mithos-smooth except that it more honestly hitched to curiosity.

Lloyd shrugged, not exactly nervous, but mindful that Yuan didn't sound like he'd anticipated this bit of news coming from him. "From the kitchens," he responded, suitably vague, leaving out any names. "I hear a lot of things down there. The Desians talk a lot with their meals."

Yuan made no comment.

This spoke worlds to Lloyd.

"It's really true, then? The King's taxes?"

"I'm sure that you don't know the whole story. But, yes, it's true." With that, he took a seat at his desk and forfeited the discussion. For whatever reason.

Lloyd paused. His mind was working better than it had in a long time.

Then, taking everything into account:

"It must be getting hard for you out there."

Again, no comment.

Lloyd stepped quietly over to the settee. He stood over it, bowing his chestnut head and keeping still until he heard Yuan's hands moving once more. He made a small circuit around that wing of the room, proudly refraining from touching Yuan's things. Instead, he marked objects and oddities with his eyes, memorizing the Seraph's Centrum home. Then he sank onto the settee and became lost in a reverie of comfort.

He rested his head back against the wall.

He heard the scratching as Yuan wrote at his desk. It mingled with his subconscious. He thought it sounded like squirrels on branches.

Kicking off his boots, Lloyd dropped onto his side, legs slightly bent at the knee so that he would fit on the furniture. "I'll leave in fifteen. I can afford that much time."

Yuan nodded from his desk, never looking up from his documents, and Lloyd didn't see the permissive gesture anyway but didn't need to. He closed his eyes.

For fifteen minutes, they still didn't speak. But it wasn't at odds with comfort. Theirs was an estranged relationship to begin with, yet it seemed to fit in with who they were. Lloyd never once felt ignored by Yuan because he understood more and more how Yuan functioned. It wasn't like Kratos. Yuan knew his place, and he knew Lloyd's. He kept everything in its respective dimension, only ever cheating for the fun of it, whereas Kratos had blended too many dimensions together and was paying for it. Lloyd didn't think that Yuan would ever be the type to have kids – then again, objectively speaking, he wouldn't have thought that Kratos was the type to have kids, either. Sometimes when Lloyd compared Yuan to Kratos – or even to Mithos – he had to remind himself of his fundamental differences.

During the course of the fifteen minutes, Yuan glanced from time to time at the skinny figure reposed on his couch and speculated where this would lead him. He'd already made some… intriguing… choices, ones that were above Lloyd's head. He'd already grafted squares into circles. As he pondered his best friend's son, his thoughts easing into designs like a machine, he could just make out the line of an eyebrow from where he sat at his desk. It looked like Lloyd was asleep.

Yet the boy somehow knew exactly when fifteen minutes had passed. Without a word from the Seraph, Lloyd sat upright and stretched. His hair was even more disheveled. When he saw that Yuan was watching him, though, he cocked a grin at him.

Even in the least expected expressions, Yuan saw Kratos in Lloyd's face.

The brunet began preparing to leave. He was tugging his foot into a boot, wincing obscurely.

Yuan lifted his brows and finally addressed him again. "Stomach?"

"Nah. Foot."

"Come again?" Yuan set down the sheet in his hand, prepared to pay Lloyd mind and translate his mumblings into something that made sufficient sense in his head.

"Boots don't fit anymore."

"No?"

"They're too small. I grew out of them, but I'm on my feet all day, so..."

"Mm," Yuan intoned. He stood from his desk and went into the back room.

Lloyd hooked his finger on his boot collar—

—and blinked when a pair of smooth black boots dropped heavily onto the carpet next to his right foot.

"Try those."

Wondering cinnamon eyes rose to meet sober pine.

Lloyd craned his neck. "Those are your boots."

"Were. They're yours now."

"They…"

"Let's not get into an argument about boots, Lloyd Irving." Impatience was held in check, but in a way so obvious that Lloyd knew it was being held in check. Only just. "I don't wear these. I have other pairs. Don't feel sorry for yourself."

Lloyd needed to hear that, deserved that berating. Backwards though it sounded, it was true Yuan-style.

He smiled toothily. "And even more I am in your debt," he accepted, reaching for the boots.

"I always collect, in time." Yuan took measurements by approximations with his eyes as he bantered with the boy. "They might be big on you, but you'll grow into them."

Lloyd stomped one freshly clad foot onto Yuan's carpet.

"These are nice boots."

"They are, aren't they?"

"What if somebody in the kitchens notices that I'm wearing different boots?"

Yuan couldn't provide Lloyd with much or too noticeably assist his arrangements lest he attract suspicion. But boots are only boots.

"No one will. No one pays attention to your feet."

"But what if someone does?" Lloyd persisted.

"Then tell the Desian that I gave them to you." This was suggested blandly, with a tone inhumanly cold, a tone that came from Yuan the Seraph who didn't have to explain himself to a Desian. Because it shouldn't have to come to that over the ownership of a pair of boots, anyway. It was obscene, the things that they put this boy through.

"Thanks, Yuan." Lloyd dug his left foot into the remaining boot, stood, and walked a few paces to feel them out. "Thanks for everything."

Yuan crossed his arms… and went in for the kill. "It's the least I could do considering that you ought to look presentable tomorrow for your father."

Lloyd froze with his feet together. "What?"

Déjà vu one more time. "Kratos is returning to Centrum." He plowed on, continued speaking before Lloyd could ask the questions that he was already trying to answer. "There's going to be a big dinner tomorrow. Even the Grand Cardinals are invited. It's supposed to be a meeting of the minds. Kratos will speak about his endeavors on Derris-Kharlan."

"A dinner?" _Click_. "That's what Cook was talking about! That's why I have to work tonight! The feast of Ranks!"

"You'll do more than work tonight, Lloyd." Yuan beamed devilishly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to get you at that table tomorrow evening."

Lloyd's mouth hung open.

"Don't do that."

"Mithos…"

"Leave him to me. You just wait on that table. You want to see Kratos, don't you?"

"Of course!"

"Then believe that your Cook's involvement is for a reason."

Lloyd stroked his bottom lip, in thought. The kitchens were run by Desians, Desians were run by the Grand Cardinals, Grand Cardinals were run by Yuan. "Are you responsible for—"

"You will be late if you don't hightail it back to your cell."

Lloyd visibly jerked. "Aahh! You're right! Thank you, thank you," he cried, as he dashed for the door. "And Yuan?"

"Hm?"

Lloyd grinned his old grin. "I trust you."

"Thank you, Lloyd. You are welcome in this place."

A bob of untidy hair and he ducked out the door.

Yuan didn't idle there. He had some manipulations to perfect. If Kratos wouldn't believe the way that his son was being treated, he'd see it with his own eyes tomorrow.

There'd be nowhere else to look.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note: I'd just like to take a little space to thank all of you who have read, reviewed, recommended, subscribed to, bookmarked, or otherwise participated in Solicitude - and Chapter 10 is as good a place as any to do it.  
My especial thanks goes to princespeach. You've been a #1 fan since the beginning. Your reviews have meant so much to me, and I find myself living for them with heady anticipation after each additional chapter. You make me a little better. Thank you so much.****  
I'd also like to thank  
freakyanimegal,  
SilverMoon888, and  
' THE TOM HANKS EXPERIENCE, all of whom seem to be "regular regulars." Your feedback does not go amiss. It's a good feeling to know that people actually read this - and I know that my writing isn't the easiest to read. So, thanks, kind readers.  
To everyone else who skyrocket my hit counter, many thanks. I see and appreciate it.  
I don't know what else to say but that it's time for the story to go on, kind readers.  
**

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There were many defining moments in Kratos Aurion's life, moments where his entire psyche hinged like a swivel on an autonomy-be-damned event that claimed him headlong. Quite a number of these defining moments were invented by Mithos Yggdrasill. Undeniably. For better or for worse, but undeniably. There were several during the Kharlan War, some bestial and, in turn, some ideologic that were like rushes of adrenaline for the spirit rather than for the body. The consummation of Origin's Seal was one. His Cruxis Crystal was another. Each of these events manifested a kind of perenniality from within him. Each pegged a piece of him outside humanistic tendency and fallibility so that he could endure for reasons bigger than himself. Meeting Anna was another defining moment in his life, as was her death, and as were the birth and subsequent loss of his son. In fact, there were plenty of defining moments in a life as long as his had been. A lot of them weren't in any particular order, but all of them had turned him inside out, yanked the path from under his feet, and deposited him farther along it. These little wrinkles in time – these defining moments where the human existence is broken down into sheer seconds of jinx or serendipity – were what made a man who he was and enacted courses and destinies and worlds.

Interestingly enough, along with his belief that these defining moments did indeed exist, Kratos Aurion was a fatalist. After Anna died, he stopped believing in control – for the very paradox of the attempt; it had gotten her killed – because man did not define these moments but these moments defined man. Given knowledge and "now," a man wasn't anything more than who he was, and his actions during the events of these defining moments would unfold exactly the same way if repeated ad infinitum because there was only one path. Yes, the path could be yanked and shifted under his feet to deposit him at a different point, but it was inevitably a different point along the same path.

Contrary to all the things that Kratos Aurion was, there were many things that Kratos Aurion was not, and on that grievously long list was being a good father. Fate – in its sick, twisted way of doing things – had spared Anna this revelation. Kratos' incompetence had outlived her, which was a pretty lousy blessing, but it meant that she didn't have to suffer seeing her son in this predicament that only Kratos could change but wouldn't. Kratos wouldn't have traded Anna for the world, and – faith damn him! – he was afraid, in his guilty heart of hearts, that Anna's son was no exception. He was afraid to even think about Lloyd, as if mere reflection would curse the child… because he was afraid that he might let himself believe he wished for Lloyd's death that day instead of Anna's, and it was a filthy, filthy thought. Yet circumstances dictated those crucial moments with sonorous judgment, and, indelibly, Kratos _had_ traded Anna for her son. And then he had lost her son. And he wept. That meant something, proved that he loved the toddler at one time – he _did_.

But Lloyd Aurion rose from the ashes as Lloyd Irving, and Fate mocked Kratos again because – no matter how many times Yuan told Kratos that Lloyd was the spitting image of him – all he could see was Anna, and that was what made him feel so vile. He loved his son with his whole heart, but he feared to stick around and find out if that was really true or not, and that inability to come to terms with the boy whom he loved with a vengeance made him guilty, so guilty, on multiple accounts. He didn't know what to do with Lloyd or his sick thoughts, but he would not be the one to taint him. He was determined that he would not sully this. He'd already killed his mother. He couldn't stand the idea that maybe he would have sacrificed his own son to prevent that end, but— No, enough; he would not think about it. It was a maddening, cumbersome pattern of thought, almost like being caught in a lie that was never spoken to begin with, and worse still when he had to stand in Lloyd's presence and look him in the eyes.

Father material he was not, yet the Tethe'allan evening found Kratos traveling through Centrum's holds in search of his son. He had no escort this time; he knew the way. But when he rounded the corner to Holding Two, he was met by an empty cell.

Just as vacantly, he touched the gate with a hand gloved in alabaster.

They had moved his son?

Kratos' eyes, the color of walnut ink, skimmed smoothly over the interior walls. He lowered his hand back down to his side. Assuming an expression of placidity that would rival Mithos' calm, he turned away from the hold and retraced his steps. Mithos should be out of his pre-meeting – a meeting that would likely spell inequity at theirs – and Kratos had only just made his return to Centrum an hour ago. He should be taking his place at the table by now, but he was all ready to get to the bottom of this. He felt as though he'd been robbed. It was always hard to shake that feeling, so he only confined it to the scantest degrees of discomposure before it could jettison into anything conspicuous. There was always that propensity to panic when it came to Lloyd, even for the slightest of changes – like him not being where he was supposed to be.

Kratos passed by Cruxis subjects who nodded their heads as one in an overture of respect. As always, he looked like a Seraph who had somewhere to be, and they would not hinder that. Even without the sight of his wings, he wore status. It wasn't the tastefulness of his attire or that he was wearing his formal whites – bleached lily from shoulder to feet, with the close-fitting jacket, double-cuffed sleeves, and standing collar – as was custom for these closed meetings. It was something in his bearing, in his hard face and even harder eyes, like a man too long in his profession who had traded sweet dreams for sleepless nights and power in his fingertips. Well, it didn't matter what these people thought of him as long as they stayed tame.

He passed through a curving archway, descended another flight of stairs two steps at a time, and veered left to the mouth of a corridor that led to the double door entrance of a dining hall.

It was bad, he thought grimly as the doors were pushed open for him by attending servants, that he already had a headache.

Here came the man of the hour.

* * *

Lloyd slept maybe three hours the night before, and not a smidgen of an hour more than that. He had been unable take his mind off the fact that Kratos would be back in less than eighteen. Or that now, as he stood outside the dining hall schlepping dishes and glasses to trays, he had been appointed to the feast of Ranks due to some strangely self-serving foul-up. When given the news, he had turned to Cook a face blinking with proper naivete, as if only just last night he absolutely _hadn't_ been clued in by one of the Seraphim that he was meant to be at that table.

Cook was a little baffled that Lloyd was swapped into the job at the final curtain call. He'd been working all day with him in the kitchens, and then they'd been called for more serving hands in the waiting circle, whoever each kitchen could spare – who knew why besides Yuan? – so Lloyd was switched out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. But Cook was a little pleased for the boy who had become one of his count. If Lloyd gained headway personally serving Lord Yggdrasill it likely meant good graces and a quicker end to this unexplained punishment. That's the way Cook saw it, anyway. The boy deserved a good hot plate as soon as he was allowed, begrudgingly or not.

Not everyone could be happy for Lloyd, though. There was Osha, who said that he'd rather be skinned alive than have to work _that_ dinner party and good luck and good riddance and he'd be out of Centrum by the time those guests of honor were assembled. Lloyd took Osha's rant in good humor, the only kind of humor he had that day.

Lloyd was told that he and the other workers, whom he didn't know beyond faces, would be serving a banquet of thirteen. This thirteen would include Lord Yggdrasill himself as well as the two other living Seraphim, Grand Cardinals, and a number of Ranks handpicked by Grand Cardinals. Good luck indeed; this was a hot spot, and Lloyd thought thirteen an unlucky number. But Kratos would be there. That's all that mattered. Kratos would be there, and so maybe his life could still be salvaged from Cruxis. Mithos couldn't do anything to him as long as Kratos was back.

And now he was ready. He wore a smock over his clothes, identical to those of the other servers. Stupid that it was white, though – stupid in Lloyd's opinion, anyway. Colette would never have been able to disguise her spills if she were the one wearing it. That made him grin and look down at the floor, easing the chaotic flight of butterflies in his stomach that somehow got there without him noticing when. The smock was supposed to cover him from food and drink and also give all of them a semblance of matching uniform, but Lloyd guessed it probably didn't hurt that it was camouflaging his quite-shabby red-grey ensemble. _That_ outfit was quite a piece of work now. Lately, Lloyd always kept his sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to three-quarter the length of his arms. His sleeves were too short for his arms – or, rather, his arms were too long for his clothes – by an inch and a half, and the sleeves were too tight around his wrists. So buttons needed to stay unbuttoned, and sleeves out of the way. Plus, bare arms were best for dishwashing. He would run around in his looser undershirt except that he got chilled when he did.

As Lloyd waited to be useful, his downward gaze shifted so that he was admiring his "new" black boots. He was proud of those boots. They were definitely—

"Spiced wine!"

Lloyd's head snapped up.

"They're calling for more spiced wine," one of the serving girls said. She was a chef, not a waitress – a chef better suited her personality, anyway – but they'd needed people and so she was roped into this the same way that Lloyd had been. Rumor had it that Seraph Yuan had perfectly handpicked a number of workers – equally, by kitchen – to prepare a certain private dinner in his quarters last night. In exchange for this service, he relieved them of tonight's duties, which made the waiting circle shortstaffed and transformed it into a last-minute rush job of secondhand recruits. Like Lloyd, who pretended not to know anything about the delicious feast at Yuan's last night.

Lloyd nodded his head and hoisted the wine bucket in plain initiative. "Got it."

The woman blinked owlishly at him, as if noticing him for the first time. Whatever it was that went through her mind when she looked at him, it must have been satisfactory enough to stopper any of the questions she had. "Then don't just stand there – go!"

"Agh— geez! Who?"

"The Grand Cardinal!"

"Which one?"

"Lord Magnius! Now go!"

She practically shoved him through the door.

* * *

"You're getting off track, Magnius," scoffed Grand Cardinal Forcystus. "Drink or debate, but please avoid doing both at one time."

It was insult to injury, especially since Magnius' face was changing red. And he'd just requested more wine.

Magnius' man cleared his throat, did not reach for his own glass, and did nothing more. He was, more or less, a sit-in. Everyone of merit knew that. The Ranks were brought to the table for other reasons. Some would say that they were fallback redundancies.

Even still, Kratos was obliged to speak. He was supposed to listen and give full due, whether or not he thought it a waste of time. So he began:

"Magnius, your proposition abuses Derris-Kharlan's capacities." This was stupid. Why was he even bothering?

"It gets you what you want, Lord Kratos."

"At issue," came Yuan's measured voice, sounding very bored.

"Respect, Lord Yuan, but there _would_ be reductions. Half with Exspheres. Less that with Cruxis Crystals."

"Kratos knows," The Grand Cardinals fell silent when Mithos spoke, "better than any of us what can and cannot be done on Derris-Kharlan." He sat at leisure in his chair, presiding over the meeting like a glorified referee. His aim was as scrupulous as his words. "So, Kratos, can Derris-Kharlan support this population?"

Kratos looked fixedly at Mithos, and Mithos looked right back at him. The leader of Cruxis was well on his way to a closed-lip leer.

"Derris-Kharlan cannot support even half that number, Lord Yggdrasill," Kratos answered.

"That ends that, then." And Mithos went back to swishing his wine.

"We could ask Origin," said Yuan. He made it out as a suggestion, but it sounded borderline insincere. The Grand Cardinals couldn't tell if he was being serious. They couldn't tell with Lord Yuan _period_.

But Kratos could. Kratos gave him such a look, would have glared if he could, and had to put in two cents more after that. "I have a scenario that may work," he focused away from all the others and onto Mithos. "and an outline for you, Lord Yggdrasill, that calls for Rodyle's Cannon."

"I don't see that helping Derris-Kharlan. One might call it counter-productive."

"A risk," Kratos agreed, giving Mithos that much – and he was speaking only to Mithos now. "but I know what she can endure."

Pronyma, the only woman at the table, piped in. "This is pathetic."

"Your tongue, Pronyma."

"There's no getting around what has to be done."

He'd come back to Mithos later. For now, he had to address Pronyma, give her some attention.

"What is that?" Kratos had to ask.

"We lose one of them. Likely Sylvarant."

Yuan looked at Kratos from across the table. He said nothing. But he didn't need to. Kratos felt his eyes.

Pronyma continued, "The only real advantage of holding onto Sylvarant over Tethe'alla would be for the privatization of mana. As I very firmly doubt any of you would opt for that, given our present situation, the only sensible thing to do is to expire Sylvarant."

"It's still not that easy," Forcystus jumped in.

"It is," Pronyma countered hotly. "We begin where we left off, if Lord Kratos won't farm on Derris-Kharlan."

"Derris-Kharlan would be supporting the Ranches, not the other way around. As previously stated, it can't do that." A reminder from Kratos.

"Yes, my lord, so we restart the Ranches on Sylvarant."

Kratos had the mental image of Yuan raising his brows at him. He folded his hands and crashed in. To save the world…

"With all due respect for the opinions on the table, I don't know that—"

Kratos' eyes suddenly shot somewhere just off, between Yuan and a Grand Cardinal. The cold iron in his irises flared for a single, violent instant. His eyes _shook_, but he galled that emotion so swiftly – whatever was there – and nobody took notice. Seraphim excluded.

"You don't know what, Kratos?" Mithos had taken a glance toward the same spot, saw what had caused Kratos' mercurial fit, and prompted him just the same. He smiled. Cruelly.

"I don't know that the Grand Cardinals are seeing this from the proper angle."

Kratos launched into his speech. Yuan, all the while, watched him closely and willed him not to be stupid – no stupider than was necessary. Yuan saw Kratos' eyes flicker during the moments between moments, saw when his eyes seemed to stray just beyond his listeners, felt Lloyd, the object of Kratos' horror, when he came up to the table to refill drinkware. Yuan watched Mithos, too, and gauged his response. He did not disappoint. Mithos played his game impeccably, even though he was as incensed by Lloyd's unwarranted appearance as Kratos was shaken by it.

"… using them as a source. The Exspheres don't create mana; they resource it …."

Yuan held onto the thread of Kratos' voice while his eyes wandered. Lloyd had circled to the other side of the table. Kratos' side. The boy actually looked scared. Well, good for him. This was the lion's den, Lloyd was the lamb – and, oh, Pandora's box might open any second, too. That happened when two Seraphim were provoked at exactly the same time. But Lloyd trusted Yuan, and that meant that he trusted Yuan could kill two birds with one stone. Even if the birds were falcons.

**Don't look at me,** Yuan mentally reprimanded Lloyd, **damn your eyes.**

Lloyd came right up alongside Kratos.

He hesitated.

Then Lloyd went ahead and topped off his father's wine glass.

And that's when Pandora's box was wrenched open and Kratos slipped up:

"I am saying, Magnius, that the world is backwards in your head," he snapped, coolly.

Yuan, back on track with the debate, didn't know whether to laugh or cringe.

"A word, if I may," Kratos had abruptly stood and turned on Mithos. "In private."

* * *

He didn't want to bleed Sylvarant dry. It was already deficient, cut off from the wellspring of mana. Let the generations live for as long as they could. Those were Lloyd's people. He didn't want to kill anyone anymore, not over these boasts that were hardly credible. Was Mithos hanging him over the Cardinals' heads for sport? Now Yuan was looking at him, and he knew they were of like mind. Sylvarant must be spared. He was going to be polite about this.

"With all due respect for the opinions on the table, I don't know that—"

While Kratos was in the mid-sentence of his words – truly as though the spirits _wanted_ to strike him down with lightning but decided that choking would suffice – his son strode into the hall through the doorway directly across from him. Point blank in his field of vision. He just strode in, as if by rote of business, carrying drink. Before Kratos could fathom what Lloyd was doing here, the teen had edged over to the table and lifted the wine from the bucket. The knowledge was a split-second absorption for Kratos: dear Martel, his son was going to _wait_ on them.

Kratos didn't freeze up exactly, but his hesitation may have been with too little grace to be taken for a meaningful pause.

"You don't know what, Kratos?"

Kratos met Mithos' direct gaze. He was sick for using his son to toy with him like this, without apparent cause or justification. There was no reason for this sudden attack. He had done nothing to be spurned like this by the lead Angel of Cruxis – and in front of everyone. It seemed out of line even for Mithos' methods. Yet Kratos' words flowed forth, as if nothing had happened. "I don't know that the Grand Cardinals are seeing this from the proper angle. They have contextualized the definition of mana to suit their timespan." They always did, and that wasn't necessarily wrong because people _shouldn't_ live for as long as Mithos, Kratos, and Yuan had.

The Seraph Aurion let himself run his eyes over Lloyd again. The boy was refilling Magnius' glass. His head was bent. Brown, wavy-like locks passed over dark jasper eyes. But closer, and to a parent's eyes, Lloyd looked that much more appalling.

"Please continue."

Kratos had to tear his eyes away from the figure. That shabby red image wasn't the Lloyd he remembered leaving here. "The Desians have been farming Exspheres for so long that you believe host bodies are a requirement for our ends. They aren't. Mana outdates people."

Not to linger too long on the boy, Kratos moved his sight again. He could make out peripheral motions of his son as he was circling to serve one of Pronyma's Ranks. It took considerable willpower for Kratos to keep jagged anger from his voice as Mithos flaunted his child this way, as a tool. Lloyd kept looking at Kratos. Nervously, he thought. It made Kratos all the angrier because Lloyd's face was so open. But that wasn't all. His eyes looked too-huge, and around them his face was all bare-boned angles, without a trace of complexion to be had. It nearly drove Kratos to the floor. The boy was emaciated. Kratos could see that through the cooking smock that Lloyd wore. This was absolutely _not_ how Kratos had left him. He was obviously not being cared for, and Kratos wanted to kill whoever was responsible. The voice inside his head told him, though, that if he was looking for the guilty he need only look into a mirror. But as Kratos covertly studied Lloyd, secondary and tertiary observances showed even more changes, though more of the natural variety; Lloyd was getting noticeably, officially tall for his age. He was at least a handswidth beyond average, where Kratos had seen him last, but in combination with his ill-fitting clothes his height presented him as awkwardly spindly, scrawny even. He also looked like he had been given neither haircut nor hairbrush during his stay.

"But the Exspheres are cultivated through their biology. Mana is _in_ them."

"Mana is in them, but it's not of them," Kratos corrected, trying hard not to stare at his silently attending son. "While you're redefining mana, what is a man?"

Nobody seemed to have any comment toward his rhetoric.

"If you analyzed the corpse of a man, you would find several gases in his body that match those prevalent in our own atmosphere. But the man didn't produce those gases. He breathed them in because they were all around him." Too many impressions of Anna in Lloyd's appearance. Too many. Kratos had to keep speaking. "People are consumers. People weren't put here for mana. Mana was put here for people. Contrary to that rule are your Exspheres. You are using them as a source. The Exspheres don't create mana; they resource it, concentrate it within efficient little encasements for us. What you've been doing is recycling mana, not creating it. For Derris-Kharlan, we will try to create it."

Magnius kept shaking his head.

A Desian – one of Forcystus' Ranks – spoke up. "The source of mana was the Tree."

"Which is dead."

"Now you see the bigger picture. Bury your Ranches and put to sleep your host bodies."

"But we can only use what we have, Lord Kratos. Sylvarant _is_ a resource."

"So is Tethe'alla, if you put it that way."

He couldn't see Lloyd now because he was right next to him. He could feel him, and his presence did not feel like that of the shadow he resembled, but of realness – of Anna's flesh and Anna's energy. This was his son, the only reason that Kratos had left to love. And this was… _wrong_. All wrong. He couldn't weather this storm for much longer. His impatience began to leak.

"_Everything_ is a resource. _People_ are a resource, but a finite one. We need a true source. You need to think outside of _people_."

"What are you saying, Kratos?"

His own son, Anna's flesh and Anna's energy, began serving him wine like the lowliest, detestable slave of Cruxis that he was.

And Kratos' heart burst into flames at this act of desecration.

"I am saying, Magnius, that the world is backwards in your head."

Magnius sobered up fast.

The Ranks shared sudden looks, as if silently asking themselves if they'd heard that.

Pronyma muttered impieties.

Mithos and Yuan said not a word.

And Kratos… Kratos stood and faced Mithos.

"A word, if I may. In private."

Then, all at once, the Grand Cardinals wanted to talk.

Mithos gathered himself to his feet, like a cat disturbed from its roost. "Enough," he quieted them, then he headed for the double doors with the right hand of Cruxis in tow.

* * *

Lloyd didn't know what they were discussing as he approached the table, but the Grand Cardinals sounded like a brood of vipers. Whatever it was, it was important enough that politeness was only the thinnest layer of ice bound to crack before raging black waters of discordance.

The table itself was lengthwise, similar enough to his usual tables. Mithos sat at the head. Lloyd couldn't tell what he was wearing, only that his outer garment was loose and white. He noticed that Mithos held a glass of wine which he tilted back and forth and watched as rivulets of burgundy sloshed against its curve. He was relatively quiet in present company, letting Kratos do most of the talking. He sat there and bombarded the others with his razor-sharp, light-hued scrutiny. But he didn't act like this was a chore that way that Yuan had made it sound last night. **The Seraphim don't share the same agenda.** Time to start remembering that. It should have been obvious by now.

Lloyd didn't understand the internal Seraph – his father included – but he watched Mithos spin his wine and recalled that Yuan had bitten into that string bean last night even though he hadn't joined Lloyd in his feast. Colette didn't need food or drink either during the Angel Transformation. But food hadn't hurt Yuan or anything weird like that. So he wondered of the Seraphim's relationship to food and if it was categorized as necessity or not.

Kratos, too, had a plate set in front of him. He had wine that looked untouched. He sat at Mithos' right. Yuan was directly across from Kratos, at Mithos' left. The rest of the table was Desians – three Grand Cardinals mixed in with Ranks.

Lloyd's first few steps into the hall felt like a marathon race. His pulse quickened, and he was insanely self-conscious. The Ranks ignored him, but the Grand Cardinals knew who he was. They knew that Mithos had been keeping him, but they also knew better than to say anything. They studied him like a piece of meat, the way that they _didn't_ seem to give the other servers a glance. This was Anna's son. Pronyma favored him with distaste in her stare. If he hadn't already known what they were eating, Lloyd might've assumed that she'd just taken a bite of something sour. Magnius, on the other hand, grinned maliciously at him, like Lloyd really was a dirty pet of Cruxis. Forcystus was indifferent, covering up for some personal offense, perhaps. But Kratos was the reason behind Lloyd's plummeting heart. Right from the start, he caught Lloyd's eyes, and Lloyd had witnessed the flash of horror as it paved Kratos' expression. His father vibed anger in waves of pent-up release. Lloyd didn't know how he knew, but he did. Kratos was… upset, disappointed, disgusted. He was trying to look anywhere but at Lloyd, which did a number on the boy's confidence level. Kratos _really_ didn't seem to want him there, and Lloyd caught on to that early.

He served the others, overhearing their conversation and Kratos' inflectionless tone. He felt cheapened; not by their looks – because he would give not a damn about them and be glad to tell them the story – but by the way that Kratos ignored him except for the offbeat glances that made him feel pretty terrible. He understood that Kratos had to get through this meeting and that he shouldn't take it personally. But that initial stare of disgust and aversion and… and _fear_… came from his father especially for him.

**I should've never agreed to this.**

Lloyd stopped beside Kratos. For truth, he wasn't sure what to do. The man hadn't touched his wine, but Kratos was a Seraph of Cruxis and Lloyd was a server. So he erred on the side of caution and followed what duty entailed. He topped off Kratos' glass—

—and hastened backward when he could suddenly hear emotion in Kratos' words. It wasn't a full-force barreling, but it came from nowhere and targeted Magnius.

Everyone was a little confused.

Kratos rose. Wouldn't look at Lloyd.

"A word, if I may. In private."

Hostile whispers, dripping with sarcasm, began to trade, even among the Ranks.

"Enough."

And off Kratos went with his Cruxis master.

Lloyd abandoned the wine, took a breath, and broadened the gap between him and the rest of the people at the table. Some of the other workers began to flock there to collect dishes, and it was only a matter of time before the Grand Cardinals noticed that he was still standing nearby. He turned and stalked out of the hall as Yuan conducted the Desians, sharply reinstating order.

When Lloyd reached Yuan's chambers – as sure thing he went straight there – the first thing he did was tug the smock off, ball it up in his hands, and toss it to the side. Next, he began to pace to and fro, to and fro. That was a disgraceful sham, back there. That was… well, he wasn't sure _what_ that was supposed to be. Lloyd didn't have a mind for politics, but he could smell when something was fishy as well as he could smell a rat, and the dealings at that table had been nothing but rat eating fish overlaid with Kratos' greying allusions. _If you analyzed the corpse of a man… _Lloyd blinked skeptical eyes into a frown. There was a science to mana, an application that would mean total involvement if those at that table could only decide on the right one. Mithos had Kratos to the rut, and they were planning something big by the sound of it, but through some curtained glimmer of contradiction it was Kratos who stayed his head above the current, it was Kratos who made the calls… it was _Kratos_ who was more or less in charge of Derris-Kharlan now.

Lloyd was tunneling his hands through his hair when Yuan arrived.

"Lloyd Irving, are you all right?"

"Why did you want me there?" Lloyd turned on his feet, to. "Nobody else did – not even Kratos, and I thought that was the whole point," he vented, turning again, fro. His pacing was steady but relentless and not at all what Yuan had in mind for those boots when he gave them to him.

The Seraph folded his arms and let Lloyd go. He didn't ask him to stop pacing even though it somehow made his quarters feel small, like a cage for an animal twice as little. He didn't ask Lloyd to stop raking his wine-spotted fingers through the lengths of his dirty dark brown hair – or, in the same way, to stop teasing himself. He didn't ask him to do anything, knowing that this tempest must run its course. Yuan just let him get on with it.

"They were talking about Sylvarant like it was some sort of a crappy sacrifice— he didn't even— Did you see the way he looked at me?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm surprised! I was beginning to think that I was invisible or had something on my face or—_something_."

"I put him in a very difficult position tonight. Both of you. Thank you for your trust."

Lloyd halted and remarkably didn't skewer Yuan with his gaze as Kratos was surely going to.

The Seraph was staunch, his face unmoving.

"You got something out of this?" Lloyd guessed, not sure why he was even surprised anymore.

"Yes, a few things, actually."

"Tell me."

Yuan drew near to Lloyd and, recognizing when and when not to withhold information from the boy, he spoke. "Kratos is talking to Yggdrasill as we speak, for one."

"Who cares? They're probably both mad."

"They are." He always made things sound so incidental. He also seemed to think that instigation, when following a good recipe for protocol, could be rewarding. "But each reacts differently to anger."

"Please just come out and tell me whatever it is that you're trying to say," Lloyd groaned. He didn't have the stamina for Yuan right now, not when his words were their own dialect.

"Yggdrasill never wanted you there, Lloyd. You guessed that last night. When you arrived, he did what I expected him to do: he took control of the situation."

"When is he ever not in control?"

"When Lloyd Irving entered the dining hall tonight." Yuan's lips angled into a faint smile. "Yggdrasill doesn't like anomalies, but because your father was there Yggdrasill performed admirably. He's a master pretender, you know. He always has to be a step ahead. So he pretended you into the plan. As for Kratos, he was upset the moment he saw you, but when Yggdrasill assumed charge your father had somewhere to direct his anger. He immediately held Yggdrasill responsible because Yggdrasill claimed responsibility."

"…"

"Well?"

"How do you get all this from what happened tonight? They didn't even say a word."

"I know them. I'd be a bad friend if I didn't."

"Pissing them off is being a bad friend."

"He wasn't mad at you, Lloyd." It seemed like a digression of topic, but Yuan read Lloyd's contention in his face and edgy tone, and it was obvious who he was talking about. "And if he has any sense, you're getting out of here." **As it should be,** Yuan added to himself.

Lloyd opened his mouth for a turn, but just then:

"Tell me just what it is that you think you're doing."

Lloyd spun around.

"Hello, Kratos." Yuan didn't sound the least bit excited, though he acted like he'd been expecting the man sooner.

Kratos was like a shadow, a tall, smoldering fire-shadow, until he stepped into the flat and imposed just by being. Yuan would have thought him pale if it weren't for the way his Cruxis whites betrayed his ashen face. His eyes, cut from garnet, fell on Lloyd.

"Lloyd…" Kratos said in a voice beside his voice. There was that expression again, the one that made him look sick.

"Kratos…?" Lloyd ventured, tentatively, before Kratos switched his gaze back to Yuan.

Yuan met his gaze dead-on, and, for the moment, Lloyd was ignored.

He glanced from Yuan to Kratos then back again, caught in the crossfire of their wills, and he knew that for the rest of his life he would remember how unpleasant it is to be caught in between two Seraphim.

"I'll just… I'll be outside…" Lloyd offered. When nobody spoke or moved, Lloyd made good on his words and skirted around Kratos, heading out of the suddenly stifling quarters.

He didn't really have anywhere else to go besides his cell, and that wasn't a place that he wanted to be. So he chose to go back to the lower level kitchens, and when he arrived the familiar clatter of bowls and rattles of glassware were therapeutic to him. They needed to be because there were questions in his head that were racing a mile a minute. He was almost as dazed as he'd been his first time there, just for different reasons. Funny how life worked that way. Lloyd even found his original sink. He plunged his arms into the lukewarm water, elbows-deep, fished out the brush and a plate, and began to scrub dirt away. Every kind of dirt. _Merry met, scullion. Have at it.  
_

_

* * *

_

A beat after his son was safely exited, Kratos resumed. "'We could ask Origin?' Were you trying to upset Mithos? Were you trying to throw me into the blaze?"

"You made your move."

"But not on my time, Yuan. You forget that you're not the only one with plans."

"What did Mithos say?"

Kratos ran his hand across his face. He gave pause before responding. "You're not talking about Derris-Kharlan."

"No."

Kratos began to move through the room like oil through liquid, never touched by anything around him, and not focusing on any one thing either. Guilt weighed his shoulders a fraction more. He was eternally guilty when it came to Lloyd, eternally damned, because despite everything that Anna had wanted it was another man that raised his son for him. Another two men, if he counted what Yuan had been doing for him.

"He thought it odd that I would accuse him of starving my son when my son has more access to food than any other man in Centrum."

"He was being contrary with you."

"I know."

"Then why do you sound as though you'd just given Mithos his way?"

Kratos looked back at Yuan, tightened his expression, and skewered Yuan with his gaze – as he'd been expected to do.

"Lloyd will no longer be starved. I've abolished his restrictions."

"Kratos…" Yuan was shaking his head.

"Lloyd will no longer be committed to a cell. This, too, I've stipulated. He has partial clearance to walk within Centrum and will be given my quarters while I'm away."

Yuan kept shaking his head. He had closed his eyes, though, to seal off Kratos from sight so that it was just another voice of Cruxis speaking these words.

"Mithos sees nothing wrong with Lloyd doing his part while he stays here."

"Is that how he put it?"

Kratos ignored him, just continued to spit out mandates like a machine. "While I don't like it, Mithos won't budge on this. Lloyd will continue his work, but his time in the kitchens will be cut."

Yuan opened flat eyes to Kratos, obviously not impressed. These tiny victories meant nothing now. These tiny victories only condemned Lloyd. As far as Yuan was concerned, Kratos had stomped progress into the ground through his acquiescence.

"What would you have me do?" Kratos suddenly posed the question with a thundering emphasis, reacting to Yuan's unspoken accusations. "_What?_"

"When can I stop lying to your son, Kratos? You don't get to see the look on his face. I get to. It's nothing that I want to see again."

"Mithos will not stop until he has Lloyd's Exsphere."

"And you don't seem to be taking either side when it comes to that. You're letting the boy fight this battle alone."

"What is there for me to do to protect him other than what I am already doing? Do you want me to tell my son to throw away conscience and give in to Mithos?"

**Do you want me to mold my son into me?**

"You have ground to take him away from Mithos."

"I can't."

"You are Origin's Seal."

Kratos laughed bitterly. "That title is nothing more than a placeholder now, and you know it."

"It's something that you have over Mithos. You can use it. He won't challenge you over your right to your son. He can't. It is your fear that lets him get away with what he shouldn't."

"There's no getting out of this, Yuan. I've tried once, and for it I have blood on my hands. Would you have me lose Lloyd too?"

There were a dozen things that he wanted to say to Kratos, and twelve of them would hurt. Yuan shouldn't have been involved in all this, but he was as a favor to his friend who didn't seem to appreciate the favor. This whole thing was Kratos' worst nightmare, Yuan knew. This wasn't supposed to have happened, but it did, and the only right path was for Kratos to stand up against Mithos and get Lloyd out of here, even if it meant running for the rest of his life. It was part of the bargain of family. It was the price he paid for blending perspectives.

The thing was, neither of them really knew what Mithos would do.

Yuan speculated that Kratos should risk it all for his child – that he _owed_ that to his child.

To Kratos, the very "all" that Yuan wanted him to risk _was_ his child.

And the combination of these really made a mess of things.

"I can't be around all the time," Yuan said more gently. "I'm not. I told you that I won't babysit your child."

"I know," Kratos acknowledged, and he sounded oddly deflated, as though all fury had left him in a single breath and he was back at the beginning of an endless circle again.

"I meant it. Someday I won't be here, and you'll be stuck on Derris-Kharlan because of some complication."

Yuan stepped forward and placed his gloved hand upon Kratos' left shoulder.

"What would happen to Lloyd then, if we're both not here?"

* * *

One month later...

"Kratos is stuck on Derris-Kharlan because of some complication," Yuan announced, emerging from his bedchamber and shaking out the cuffs of his sleeves.

"Oh yeah?" Lloyd sounded from his place on the settee. It was his favorite spot, laying there bent-kneed with his head propped against one arm of the furniture and his feet planted against the other.

"Technology," contributed Yuan. He strode across the room to his desk, flashed green coral eyes at the copious amount of briefs.

Lloyd paused in mid-chew of his seasoned roll and glanced up from what he was drawing, then he quickly gulped down his mouthful of food. "Is he okay?" Concern creased Aurion features with an intensity reserved for anything related to Kratos.

Yuan crossed over to Lloyd and took a glimpse of the cream-colored parchment balanced against his curled legs. "He's fine. Communications will be off-and-on, but according to the last transmission Derris-Kharlan is stable."

The dark-haired teenager nodded his head, finished off his roll, and ousted himself from the settee. "Any idea when he gets to come back?" Lloyd asked, and the hopefulness presented itself in his voice as he drifted over to the cooler. It was an upright rectangular cold-storage unit, fashionably grey – or perhaps simply new-tech grey. He bowed his head as he rummaged through it. Yuan kept it well-stocked specifically for Lloyd's appetite, which seemed nigh insatiable most of the time. Really, Yuan couldn't blame him; Lloyd ate like someone who had experienced starvation.

"It might be a little while, Lloyd," he vaguely stated, as he disappeared back into the bedchamber. "He's supposed to get farther before he gets closer."

Lloyd carefully scrutinized a piece of fruit before closing the cooler and returning to the settee. He bit into the apple, deemed it alright, then took another bite. True, Lloyd had Kratos' living apartments now, but he spent most of his free time at Yuan's, and Yuan was at peace with the arrangement. He looked out for him in ways that Lloyd made as simple as possible. Lloyd did not cross any boundaries that were not meant to be crossed, and so Yuan afforded the unusual companionship. They had what was very close to a routine during the weeks that Yuan wasn't shipped out in the name of diplomacy.

"How long, though?"

Yuan returned with an impassive face. "That depends on the botched technology. He could be here in three weeks or in three months." He refused to lie to Lloyd anymore, refused to give him false hope when it came to his father. Even when Kratos was expected back, the date changed like a current of wind – if he came at all. That was hard enough. But when he was back, he left too soon, like he didn't care. That was the hardest part. Yet Lloyd took it well and kept Kratos disproportionately blameless.

Yuan held out a white tunic to Lloyd. "Here."

Lloyd eyed the shirt and finished swallowing. Bare fingers caught it up and spread it open. "I don't know…"

"Try it on."

"But…"

"Emaciated wasn't a good look for you, but neither is wear and tear."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Lloyd stood and entered the back room. It had only been a month, but it was a month of fair treatment, and Lloyd's ribs stuck out less prominently. He showered and was fed and lived only a few skips shy of normal, and these little conveniences that everyone else took for granted did wonders in curing him, body and soul. Yuan was the mysterious benefactor who gifted him a nuance here and there to get him closer to presentable so that as time wore on Lloyd would not. These days, Lloyd exhibited a mostly average appearance, except for his ratty hair and his tallness that was beginning to carry some signs of strength behind it. It seemed the small freedoms that Kratos had won back from Mithos did some good after all.

"That doesn't look horrible," commented the Seraph when Lloyd came back wearing the tunic. "You don't look stuffy, anyway."

Lloyd shrugged insecurely while Yuan inspected him.

"You seem afraid of it."

"I just… I don't want to destroy your clothes, that's all."

Yuan chuckled – actually chuckled! "Destroy is a harsh word. Give yourself more credit."

* * *

"Wouldn't it be something if what destroyed my people could save so many more?"

"Are you sure about this?"

"Yes."

"But I thought that Volt—"

"You're right, Zelos, but I just want to check.

"Did Yuan clue you in on this— hey, no need for that. It was just a question."

"Shh, do you hear that?"

"Let me boost up over this ro—_whoa_…"

"_Wow_…"

* * *

"_Geez_… Sis, there are so many of them."

"It must be something quite important for them to stand guard."

"In a Thoda cave?"

"Genis, we're looking at this from two sides: Cruxis and us. We haven't stopped to consider the third side."

"What third side?"

"The Renegades."

"Do you think that— I dunno…"

"Would it change anything if I suggested to you that maybe it was the Renegades who started the rumors?"

"...Raine, it _would_."


	11. Chapter 11

"This tastes awful," broke Lloyd's voice into Yuan's thoughts.

"What?" was all that Yuan spared as he shuffled another volume of papers across his desk. Trace amounts of irritation colored his tone. Still, it was mild. After all, he couldn't blame clerical rush jobs on the boy currently ransacking his cooler. The Seraph bent over sheaf and brown hide surface, his cool eyes masked calm, and he began again.

"This apple. It's… tasteless," Lloyd deigned to continue, answering Yuan's rote response like he would a true question even though he heard it as otherwise. Brown eyes, deep and vibrant, blinked disappointedly down at the fruit in his fist.

Yuan spared a glance across the room at Lloyd, the source of all intrusion. He saw only shoulders and dark matted hair where the boy was hunkered down in front of the cooler. "It isn't from our usual supplier," Yuan explained, once again turning his icy green irises downward to pore over the documents upon the ancient oak pedestal. Of all the things to misplace…!

Lloyd couldn't be dismissed that easily.

"Why not?" And the adolescent rose to his feet, appearing on the opposite paneled side of the oak lined desk.

Yuan could swear that Lloyd did it purposefully sometimes – the cannonade of questions – because the boy knew perfectly well when and when not to be inquisitive toward this particular Angel of Cruxis. It was like Lloyd _wanted_ to distract him today.

And it wasn't hard to be distracted by Lloyd.

The Seraph looked across the desk at him and noticed, not for the first time, how tall Kratos' son had become. Standing there, Lloyd was nearly eye-to-eye with him – or, at least, nose-to-eye. He looked more adult than the boy who'd been kidnapped into Cruxis. Now his features were more finely chiseled than that of a child's, the shape of his face more angled, and those darkly animated eyes were almost twinned to Kratos' except for the nuances of difference. Unlike Kratos, though, all sun-dustings of color were completely absent from Lloyd's face because he wasn't permitted to step outside of Centrum and into the light of day. His complexion was pale, which only made his eyes stand out more boldly and offered his face a fetching attractiveness but for the fact that it was shielded by his hair. Wild locks of dark brown-maple had grown long. They passed his ears and parted for his eyes when he commanded them to with a flick of his head.

He was, Yuan had to admit, almost exactly how he'd imagine a teenaged Aurion ought to look, but a lot of it seemed to have happened overnight rather than over several months, like Lloyd's growth spurt was playing catch-up and couldn't stretch him fast enough.

Frankly, to Yuan, Lloyd's changing height was a pain – not because of the leg cramps of which Lloyd complained, but because Yuan was the one who clothed the boy. Whenever he thought that Lloyd's height had settled at a number, it would take off again. And his shoulders were outgrowing everything first. They weren't exactly wide yet, but they were beginning to broaden like his father's, and Lloyd was starting to have trouble fitting into even Yuan's borrowed shirts because of them. But it was only his shoulders that had beaten the lankiness so far. As vertically big as Lloyd was getting, he was still awkwardly all limbs, and when his voice cracked and deepened in the middle of a smart alec statement, it reminded Yuan that he wasn't a man yet.

"Well?" Lloyd's voice interrupted Yuan's musings once again, all bare curiosity and demanding. As if Yuan was holding out on him with bad apples…

One hand slipped over another packet of reports as Yuan drew his attentions back to the contents of the desktop. Unfastened hair, blue like sky frost, spilled over his shoulders as he trained his eyes to paper articles. "Don't you already know?" His voice was decidedly less impatient this time. It helped whenever he stopped and took inventory of Lloyd Irving. It refreshed his mind to just whom he was dealing with, and there was always tacit approval, like a fondness, every time it came down to no more and no less than who Lloyd was.

Still, Yuan avoided the word _friend_. There was entirely too large a connotation to feed when it came to _friend_. And Lloyd understood that. The time that they spent together made up days turned into weeks slipped into months. It was more like ebb and flow rather than uniform - and more and more meaningful to Lloyd, even as the rest of time was more and more pointless as it bound him to Centrum. Some days were stuttering routine, with the scrubbing of dishes and the delicate bolstering of Mithos' mood and Yuan barely breathing an acknowledgment of Lloyd's existence before he flew off down the hallway. Other days seemed to roll seamlessly into each other, together, one into the next, and Lloyd found himself at Yuan's near daily for their casual alliance.

It was easier for him now. It really was. And he was losing the will to make it harder for himself. This was not his home. He had to get back to Sylvarant. He knew that. He also knew that there was no way possible to achieve that end unless Mithos loosened the collar around his neck. But even though he was trapped here, he was becoming less like a pet of Cruxis and more like a man – more like a participant – whether or not the Desians saw it happening right before their eyes. He had tasks by day and a blanket at night – a blanket, after all, for which he'd been so earnestly pining during his cell days! These things weren't much, but they were enough to make him comfortable.

He didn't really want to get comfortable. It was not in his nature to _settle_. He told himself that he wasn't settling, in the drawing out; he still had his Exsphere, and that was the chief reason he was here. But everything was changing – or everything was changing _him_ – so that captivity was more like a way of life and less like a cage. And he didn't know what to do about it except to carry on and live for the moment when he'd finally be free of this place.

Yuan, too, witnessed the integration of compromise within Lloyd. He understood that, more than anything – and probably more than Lloyd craved even Kratos' acceptance – Lloyd wanted to be with his friends again. Lloyd talked to Yuan more than he talked to anyone else in Centrum, including Osha. Interestingly enough, however, he rarely spoke to Yuan about his friends. For Yuan, that threw everything into stark relief. Lloyd would reminisce about Sylvarant in general, even particular landmarks, knockoffs, and fallouts during the Journey, but he would not sharpen the motif of the driving force behind all that he did and for which he stood: his friends. For Yuan, that sold it; sold that Lloyd wasn't trading any of himself, despite his adaptations to Centrum. Lloyd kept mention of his friends tightly locked away, as if being _here_ and talking about them _there_ only highlighted the fact that he had failed thus far. Yuan knew that the things Lloyd treasured most weren't for anybody but for his own knowing – and that included his Exsphere.

On the contrary, Kratos confided no such assumptions to Yuan about Lloyd. That didn't necessarily mean he had none, but he never commented on Lloyd's emotional aptitude. In fact, if Lloyd was bottled up about his friends, Kratos was equally as bottled up about Lloyd. The Seraph Aurion had made returns to Centrum more than twice since winning Lloyd his quasi-freedom, but this latest disappearance was his longest dry spell yet. Nevertheless, when he was there he always checked in on Lloyd – or at least checked in with Yuan _about_ Lloyd. Unfortunately, he usually seemed preoccupied; either he was in a hurry to get away _from_ there or he dragged his feet getting _to_ there. Still, father and son did spend a minimal amount of time speaking with one another. Lloyd, having figured out long ago that Kratos was the toughest nut to crack when it came to prying, fell away from his catalogue of questions. He reduced himself to limited knowledge mode. Kratos became the one who asked the most questions during their meetings, and Lloyd was the one who did the most talking.

Lloyd's relationship to Yuan was another story.

"We are under a ban. We are blacklisted," Yuan clarified. He kept his face bowed over his papers.

"Why?" Lloyd continued prompting. He knew by Yuan's wording that it was a political thing. Maybe he was stupid, but politics were hard for him to understand. If he pushed enough, Yuan would break it down for him. It was a sure cheat.

"Haven't your Desian friends told you?" Yuan charged, but very lightly.

"About the Provisional, yes. You already know that," countered Lloyd, neutrally. He still didn't bring Osha's name into it. "And I have a pretty good sense of why. But I hear bad things now. What's going on?"

"Let's just say that we've overstayed our welcome."

That was too elusive a sentence for Lloyd to interpret, and Yuan knew it. Sometimes it was all a simple matter of being straightforward and putting forth his telling like a page out of a history lesson. It was what Lloyd was used to. It's how he'd been raised to learn. He needed Yuan to talk to him in plain speech, to explain and describe. So he did.

"Meltokio couldn't support its own hospitality for long, not even with the Church backing it, so the King executed the Provisional Act. It was meant to be a political gesture of peace to supply us with food and necessities for a bracket of time."

"Long enough for us to find our feet on Tethe'alla, but with no clear deadline," Lloyd rehashed what he'd heard, all the while shaking his head. He already found flaws. "We never needed their help."

He hadn't realized that he'd just identified himself with Cruxis in the "we" and "us" pronouns of his statement, but it did not get passed Yuan.

The Angel decided not to comment on it.

"Lord Yggdrasill did not refuse it." Yuan tapped his forefinger on one of the brass pear drop handles of the desk. Sometimes it was a challenge to dissect a fuller picture than Lloyd could ever know into a smaller sketch that he would understand. It was good practice, though; he was supposed to be an ambassador in Kratos' absence. He had to be able to do this kind of thing. "Lloyd, do you know what minority action is?"

Lloyd glowered, and his tone was instantly biting. "Yeah, something that died when the Desians took us over."

Yuan paused, reflected on those words immediately and the force painting them in hot shades of anger, taking everything in Lloyd's venom apart. _That_ was something Yuan hadn't anticipated hearing from the young Aurion boy. He'd just thrown the Seraph a curveball. Lloyd was openly watching him, almost leaning in toward him, so maybe he hadn't meant for that to come out quite the way that it did. Still, Yuan kept his face inscrutable to his watcher, but his mind was quick and thoughtful.

Maybe Lloyd wasn't dumb. Maybe Lloyd understood more than anyone thought he did. Yuan had already affirmed there was a cunning there that was contradictory to his ignorance. On the other hand, as fast a learner as Lloyd might be, he was still human. He had the potential to learn… _twisted_. And maybe he had already, but Yuan doubted that Lloyd's teacher, Raine, had taught him much about sociopolitics. That left only hearsay and the boy's own deductive reasoning.

Above all else, Yuan wanted to laugh. Lloyd was either a genius or a profound fool.

"Do you have any idea how screwed up my childhood was because of you Cruxis people and your manipulations?"

Probably just a profound fool.

"_Us_ Cruxis people?" That finally evoked a frown. Lloyd had gone a little too far. It was enough to make Yuan snappish with him, and deservedly so, but Yuan got him back in line double-quick every time he tried to lump the Seraphim together. "Remember who you're blaming for everything, Lloyd. Because I will."

With a sigh, Lloyd waved him off. He'd meant no disrespect. "I'm sorry." Whatever it was, it was gone now; that spark in his attitude drowned by temperateness. His eyes were soft again. "Go on. Please." He knew that he deserved much worse from Yuan for his outburst. "Forget I said anything."

The Angel wanted to oblige him, yet he gave him one last criticizing stare while he paced his brain.

Under the scrutiny, Lloyd took another bite of the apple. He made a face. He was normal Lloyd.

"The short of it all is that it soured." Yuan continued his abridged version, concentrating on Lloyd's face with momentary deliberation. "The King instituted a tax and turned it on the country. It lessened the strain on Meltokio, but tax increases always cause unrest among the people."

"'Cause we're immigrants taking them for all they're worth and giving nothing back. 'Cause they're paying taxes to feed another union's army." It dawned on Lloyd even as he thought it aloud, deciphering the easier kinks of the plan. "Mithos isn't being fair. I know he's riding on the Church to get away with this. He's been riding on the Church for generations, hasn't he?"

"That's neither here nor there," dismissed Yuan. "Your apples came from a supplier who blacklisted us because of the tax. Now the shipments have to come from somewhere else."

"You mean blacklisted Meltokio."

"However you prefer to look at it. Meltokians are 'sympathizers.' Nobody wants to sell or do business here."

"They can't afford to." Lloyd could practically visualize the shrinking net of commerce – and the noose as it tightened around Meltokio's proverbial neck. "The King is… stupid," Lloyd said in wonder.

"Is he?" Yuan wasn't precisely taking sides, but he preferred to spur Lloyd into thinking for himself. It struck him how quickly Lloyd had judged this case. "Would you and your brand of justice have done differently were you in his shoes, knowing only what he knew?"

It was a valid point. Lloyd quieted, stared down at the half-bitten apple held loosely in his hand. The King was trying to extend peace to an alien people. Lloyd's heart went out to him for that. He thought about Genis and Raine and how they'd never been given that privilege, and how he felt during the Journey of World Regeneration.

What a tough call.

However, Lloyd still hesitated. "But a leader who doesn't prioritize his own people…"

"He is prioritizing his own people," Yuan calmly corrected.

Lloyd's brows burrowed in puzzlement.

Then, the next moment, his eyes went round and wide as if he'd received an epiphany. "You mean…?"

That was it. That _had_ to be it. Meltokio wasn't striving for an ideal world where everybody would get along – at least, not in the sense that Lloyd had in mind.

"Is Mithos bartering the Desians?"

Yuan looked long at Lloyd and didn't even have the decency to appear nonplussed. Usually an oddball question like that broke the last barrier that separated Lloyd's mind from a great truth. Yuan didn't even have to shake his head. Lloyd pieced it together in the next instant.

Meltokio wasn't aiding Cruxis by supporting what was possibly the largest army it had ever seen.

Meltokio was at Cruxis' mercy.

"You mean the King is feeding an entire army to keep Mithos at bay? The King is acting out of fear, not kindness?!" His world – well, he supposed that Tethe'alla was his world for the time being – just flipped upside-down. "Mithos told me that this wasn't an invasion!"

"It isn't. Lord Yggdrasill can bluff as he'd like, but that isn't why we came here."

"We're a threat to the country!"

"You understand now why I get to play ambassador," was Yuan's wry remark. "You understand the King's dilemma. Whether or not it was the best course of action, the King acted on it, and now his country is tearing itself apart. Import tax was never the half of it."

"There's gonna be a war! If not a war between Cruxis and Meltokio, then at least a civil war!"

Tethe'alla was on the brink of a huge change, and to think that it all began with the fall of a Tower. That had opened the doors, the doors to a toppling universe where everything either reset itself or had an impact on everything else unto the end. Lloyd could see them: the King and his land, Kratos and Cruxis, Yuan and the Renegades, Colette and the Journey of World Regeneration… Mithos and Tethe'alla.

**If one man can take turns being the enemy and the hero, then what is justice? Does justice reset too?** **I'm just like the King – or I was. I wanted the good of all people too, not just my own, and instead my people hate me for losing the Journey. And Mithos is the most evil person that I can imagine ever lived, yet he was the hero of the Kharlan War.**

Lloyd blinked farseeing eyes, not really seeing Yuan anymore.

** Sylvarant is doomed because mana itself only flows one way.**

The Exspheres.

**Life flows one way. Something always gives. Something always gives out or gives in at the end…**

A civil war. The Kharlan War.

** And then…**

Perhaps there was some color pooling into that small sketch, broadening it into a mural. Or maybe Lloyd _could_ actually catch a glimpse of Yuan's fuller picture.

"It's starting all over again, isn't it?" he whispered.

The scattering of desk files resumed. Yuan remained strangely silent.

And Lloyd considered, then, _everything_. A world of prejudice and more Desians than he'd ever seen

_They burst forth upon a room that stretched long and tall, with heavy tables spanning most of its length – Lloyd counted at least four – and hundreds of Desians. It was madness, like an alehouse or cafeteria of some sort. He sucked in his breath as he gave the room a onceover. There was clatter and clutter, silver and butter, stains and sauce and gravy and __food__ on the tables._

_Lloyd understood, then. These were the kitchens of an army. That single thought leeched him of his bravery._

_He'd never seen so many Desians in one place. Aside from the grunt work, Desians truly were the military of Cruxis. Scattered across Sylvarant, they'd never seemed as formidable a host as they did now, all in one place – at least, as many as this single room could contain. It was… frightening, for one, that any power had such a force at its disposal. They were all here in Tethe'alla, just as Yuan had told him. There must be apartments somewhere in Centrum to accommodate all of them._

"This will affect the half-elves, won't it?"

Like flint and steel **– ** a world that hated half-elves threatened to be consumed by them, to go to war with them.

A civil war.

With eyes as human as Lloyd had ever seen them, Yuan tilted his head to him. The tide of blue moonstone drifted against one cheek as a gentle tress of hair, and he smiled a silvered smile. "Yes," he said. "That is why I wish Kratos could come back and take over for me."

He didn't explain to Lloyd what he meant by that, and Lloyd couldn't tell if it was happy or sad. It was just… _silver_. Like Yuan's smile had been. It felt like the truest part about him, whatever it was; a thing that had aged honestly all these years, since long before he ever became an Angel. Yuan rarely genuinely smiled like that.

But Lloyd knew, knew that a ripple made a wave, and that whatever was happening now was big, would change the history of the worlds for as long as anyone lived.

And, for the first time, he was completely of like mind with Yuan when he thought:

**I sure hope Mithos knows what he's doing.  
**

**

* * *

**  
Even on a warm day like this, Raine was drinking tea. She didn't want to cool down. Every ounce of her antagonism was ready to spring should the man behind the desk say a word in the sake of his defense. But Governor-General Neil said nothing. Maybe he wasn't as good a man as they thought when they supported his instatement, but he was a smart one.

"I can put you up for another night. As long as you need," he finally said in apologetic tones.

"I'd rather not use your gald. You understand…"

Neil looked as though he'd just been slapped, but he gave a tight-lipped nod.

Raine rested her tea glass on the desk and rose to her feet very purposefully. "My brother should be finishing up with his classes."

The Governor-General stood with her. Once again, he could only nod. He only ever nodded. "I'll escort you."

"No," Raine asserted. "I think not."

"Very well." Meekly spoken.

She turned her back on him.

"Professor Sage."

A pause. "Yes, Governor-General?"

"You will let me know when there is something that I ought to be doing." It was too firm for a request but for the candor. "You will let me know when you need me."

Raine faced him with a long look.

"I'm not a miracle-worker. I don't know what we're up against," he beseeched. "But you do." It was the quietest tie of allegiance, the tiniest nudge in _a_ direction, but it was there. Then, with a little more steel: "I will not have history repeat itself for the people of Palmacosta."

"I'll keep your words under consideration. Good day, Governor-General."

She slipped from the governor-general's palace, never a glance back at the limestone and mortar walls and generous glazed pillars. Her feet moved furtively toward Palmacosta Academy, but her mind was bogged down by speculations of their next move.

Raine had decided to accompany Genis to Palmacosta for his Academy session. The trip required travel by sea, so Raine's motives were suspect from the start, but there was nothing keeping her in Iselia. The mayor wouldn't mourn her loss, and a substitute teacher - one who had stepped in to fill her shoes when she left on Colette's Journey – was running the school. There was no longer a reason to be separated from her brother, especially not at a time like this. Besides, she had research to do – research of a different kind.

Colette must have had similar sentiments – or misgivings of her own – because no sooner had the Sages' time of departure been confirmed than Colette entreated herself to the siblings. She was still devastated over Lloyd – and what was a failed Chosen to do in a town with so many memories of how things would never be again? Frank must have understood this – or at least thought that a trip would help her heal. He implored Raine, entrusted Colette to Raine. In truth, there was no one that he trusted more with the safehandling of his daughter.

Colette and Raine were staying at the Skipper's Haven in Palmacosta. It was still a modest inn compared to the rest of the city, but it, too, had expanded to compete with the few other inns sprouting to accommodate the influx of tradesmen, tourists, and general pilgrims. She had left Colette at the room an hour ago so that she could drop in at Neil's office. They'd had a lot to talk about, after all – specifically, why Thoda Geyser had been shut down to tourists. And why there was a miniature army camping on its grounds.

Neil didn't like feeling cornered. The downfall of Governor-General Dorr hung over his position like the dark cloud of failure. It had taken a strong arm to gain back the people's trust, and Neil didn't want to doom himself to repeat Dorr's mistakes; however, no boats were currently running from Thoda Dock, and even though it wasn't a Human Ranch, it was no secret that the encampment at the Geyser was military.

They were being occupied.

So it wasn't all of Palmacosta – and maybe it didn't bother anyone else except for Raine and Neil – but it smelled suspiciously like compromise. Raine and Neil knew the hell of compromise. Raine had lived in Iselia during the Desian-Iselian treaty, and Neil ran an office that had a history of paying out to Desians. As they stood now, things were stable. But what would it take to change that? What _if_? What _if_ those soldiers began to make demands instead of sitting there quietly?

Raine took a breath. The must of the city settled over her in a calming blend of peppers and timber with the fishy tang of the ocean saturating everything. She wasn't pleased that Neil allowed the situation to get this far out of hand in the first place, but Genis was just ahead, waiting for her outside the walls of the Academy, and she wouldn't let that show on her face in front of him.

It didn't work.

"You hassled the governor-general again, didn't you?" Genis huffed, situating a few books in his arms as he began to walk.

"He was on his best behavior."

"That's 'cause you bully him, Sis."

"I don't bully him," she sulked. "I need him to tell me what happened."

"There've been no bribes?"

"Not a word."

"And no Ranches?"

"Not a one."

"They're just… not doing anything," Genis mused, with a stumped expression on his face. He shifted his books to one arm.

"They seized control of the Geyser."

"Of all the landmarks, why go after the Geyser? I could think of at least two other places off the top of my head that would make more sense. What do they want?"

Raine raked her fingers through locklets as white as lilies under a full moon. "Well, they looked like half-elves to me, but their uniforms weren't Desian."

"Maybe they have a new wardrobe," Genis half-joked. At his sister's scornful look, he put in, "What I'm saying is we don't know the first thing about them anymore except that they dropped off the map when everything happened."

"It's like they went into hiding. But that doesn't make any sense because—"

"—why hide when people even an entire world away know where you are?"

"Of course," Raine was pensive, "they might not know that. If we consider the possibility that it was the Renegades who spread the rumors about Cruxis."

"They'd have to know, though, if they have scouts here in Palmacosta."

"They're quiet, for Desians." Raine sounded unconvinced. "I'm not sure what's going on, Genis, but I have a pretty good hunch that Thoda Geyser is a key in all this."

Wearing an expression in the doldrums, Genis quietly murmured his accord. "And maybe the key to getting Lloyd back."

* * *

The lighthanded scratching of ink to paper filled the flat. Nothing more than that. It was somnolence, in a sense, the only soothing contribution that Lloyd ever gave up to the atmosphere of Yuan's quarters, and he did it unwittingly. Sometimes even Yuan broke up his compositions just to hear the sound of Lloyd drawing from across his quarters. His fingers were surprisingly deft for a swordsman. Yuan had glanced at some of Lloyd's pieces, but all he saw were lines. Lloyd called it abstract art, said that there was an image hidden in the lines, that it was a style. It wasn't a hobby that Yuan would've pegged for Lloyd, but he left him to it.

Just now, however, there was no solace in the echoes of Lloyd's artistic talent. Yuan's lips drew down as he continued rummaging through his desk.

For some reason, the incessancy of papers rubbing together reminded Lloyd of sand falling into a cup.

"What are you looking for?"

It was the first that Lloyd had spoken in hours. He had been pretty quiet after their discussion about Meltokio, Centrum, and the potential for war. Yuan guessed that it had been a revelation of rather mind-boggling proportions for him and so, when Lloyd had turned to his pencil, Yuan understood that he needed time to get his emotions level with his head. He hadn't mentioned a thing since, and Yuan returned to the solitary mission that he'd been at from the beginning.

"A paper."

Lloyd bowed over his own papers and darkened his lines. It was a brusque response, and it meant that the half-elf didn't particularly care for further discourse.

The sand continued to fall.

"…"

"…"

"…"

"What's _on_ the paper?"

"Numbers, Lloyd, numbers."

"_More_ numbers?" Lloyd looked positively agape at the boring revelation, but he didn't blink, still intent on his work of art.

"You need a haircut," Yuan shot back at him.

Lloyd looked up at Yuan through his curtain of bangs, tossed his head to the side to liberate his vision from his hair, then went back to his drawing.

"You badly need a haircut." Yuan modified, blandly, surveying Lloyd on the settee from across the room.

"I was ignoring you the first time."

At least _Lloyd _could.

"I'm stepping out."

That's all it took to gain back Lloyd's attention. Unfortunately. He tossed his drawing down with unnecessary force and got to his feet. "Where ya going?" he queried, as he lingered gracelessly toward Yuan.

"To gawk at numbers on a monitor." If it was supposed to be one of his jokes, he didn't sound even a little entertained.

"Don't you already gawk at numbers on paper?"

Yuan turned from his desk to give Lloyd a look.

The boy just grinned right back at him.

"Thank you for pointing that out. Yes, I do. I'm missing one, however, so I'll have to retrieve it from archives."

"Missing a number?"

"A _paper_, Lloyd…! A _paper_ of numbers."

Maybe he was dumb after all.

* * *

"I bet that Raine figured out the whole Thoda Geyser thing by now," Zelos reflected into the quiet of the inn room. His voice was alternatingly brass and nonchalant.

Sheena narrowed warm almond eyes at him from over her shoulder. It was passing strange that he'd be the one to bring up anything even remotely related to the topic. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, she's a teacher, isn't she? She can't be stupid."

It was elementary logic, a crack weak enough to come from a simpleton like him. That was about right, Sheena imagined. He really was next to useless when he didn't want to give his all. The worst part wasn't his cynicism – and he probably had every right to be cynical. The worst part was that he acted like there was no room left in him to believe her, like he _knew_ himself to be useless and had given up.

"'Course, that's assuming that what we think is true actually is true. I mean, we can't know a hundred percent for sure with only our half. With things cut right down the middle like this." He seemed stuck on this particular detail, but so was she. "We can't actually know unless we were in Sylvarant, and Raine can't actually know unless she was here in Tethe'alla."

Sheena's sigh was long and slow as she twisted in her seat away from the supplies that lay upon the bed. Cornflower blue eyes were magnetic, dragging her to face him. She would admit that he was being easier on her lately. He still wasn't gung-ho about the whole Cruxis-Yuan-Lloyd-Sylvarant affair, but he'd left his comfort zone for her, and that was as close to an enlistment as she was going to get from him.

"Should I talk to Yuan, then?"

Zelos leaned his head back. His hair of cardinal red spilled lazily over the chair in ravishing locks. "Ya know, I really wish you wouldn't."

He looked exactly the same – even sounded exactly the same, most of the time – but he wasn't. It's like he'd somehow stepped behind himself, in an act of gloriously holding out on her right when she needed him. His attitude wasn't as… _loud_.

Yet Sheena still trusted him more than anyone she knew.

"And just think about it for a sec – why would you want to bring two half-elves over here at a time like this? Oh, and let's not forget about Little Hunny who is on Cruxis' most-wanted list."

"Cruxis isn't after Colette. At least, not anymore."

"And how would you know that?"

If only it didn't take so long to get him to agree to agree.

"Because they took Lloyd, not Colette. They probably didn't even touch Colette." Sheena fingered a card that lay atop the comforter, staring off into nothing. "I know how you've been laying low for a while, living so isolated, but chances are that if they don't care about Colette then they probably don't care about you either. You are her Tethe'alla mirror, after all."

"I'm nobody's mirror," Zelos growled. He was quick to reaction on an emotional level, but his response was usually to tuck himself further behind his shield.

"You know what I mean."

They trailed off for a time. In the death of their conversation, they heard two swallows arguing outside, chittering as madly as Zelos and Sheena had during some of their own blow-ups, over the years.

"Idiot."

* * *

Two long legs clad in sable draped in a boneless, lazy fashion over the armrest. His boots, perfectly nondescript, just missed the furniture as he crossed his ankles. Lloyd was drowsing. He had no real reason to be sleepy but no real reason to be awake either, and with Yuan's place to himself he could kill time however he pleased. Before he'd left his quarters, Yuan had been in a very, well, _succinct_ kind of way, and Lloyd knew to keep off his path. Lloyd hadn't inhibited that metamorphosis between companionship and business. Yuan was Yuan. And so he was.

What a crazy day. And it wasn't even over yet. There was very well still time for his mind to be blown off the rest of the way.

Without the disruption of Yuan flipping through documents at his desk, like a flapping cadency of paper wings, the silence was a warm blanket.

**It could stand to be a little less stifling,** Lloyd thought slowly to himself. **There could be birds.** If he could remember the sounds that birds made flying through the air.

Partway through his reverie on birds, a tap sounded against the door. Lloyd roused all at once, the way that only happens when the stages of a darkening doze are disturbed by a very distinctive noise.

**That was fast.** He hadn't expected Yuan's manual retrieval to be so posthaste. But maybe he'd just dozed for longer than he thought.

In a single but somewhat gawky motion, Lloyd swung his legs back around the armrest and sat upright.

He blinked.

Yuan still hadn't let himself in.

A little late, Lloyd inferred that the man must have his hands full. "More paperwork, I'll bet," Lloyd mumbled as he strode across the room to help him in.

When Lloyd was halfway across, the entryway opened to admit Kratos Aurion.

Lloyd was hit with the first surge of feeling before he could command his dumb feet to even slow to a halt. It was one of those thrills that travel all the way up to the head and alternate between electricity in the limbs and a floating sensation.

"_Kratos_." He didn't burst out this time as he had so often before, but the emphasis on the name could not be mistaken.

Lloyd was frozen on the spot. It had been _awfully long_, and his self hadn't been given the chance to retune in preparation for yet another shock today. He was kind of embarrassed that he missed Kratos, but he couldn't help it. The only reason he could feel that way at all was because he accepted Kratos the way he was, baggage and everything. For them to ever get anywhere, the father, too, would have to take his son for who he was. The difficulty lay in facing down his own demons to find that kind of innocence to be able to do that.

Kratos wouldn't.

The man at the entrance collected himself and tensed fractionally. "Lloyd."

The greeting was always the same; always sparse and monosyllabled; always just his name, and always noncommittal, as if he wasn't sure that he should be talking to his son but was a beat too late to back out now.

"I didn't know you were expected back today." Deep mahogany regarded Kratos with curious surprise.

So Yuan hadn't told him. Kratos retained an expression deprived of any implications. He merely stood his ground, fixedly meeting Lloyd's gaze head-on. "He isn't in?"

"No. Yes— I mean, he just left, but he shouldn't be long. He just had to go pull something from archives."

Kratos had a way about him. He looked uncomfortable without ever dropping a pretense or hint. Only an elect few would have been able to tell. Lloyd happened to be one of them, probably because he was related.

"He really shouldn't be long," Lloyd repeated himself. He didn't mean to sound so contrite as he took control of the situation. "You can wait here. He won't mind. He knows I'm here."

As it was, Kratos nodded his concession to the arrangement. "I think I will."

Lloyd nodded, too. "Make yourself comfortable." Even as he spoke, Lloyd backed away to offer Kratos access to the settee. He leaned against Yuan's desk and watched the Seraph.

Kratos was just as Lloyd remembered him, although Lloyd supposed that was a knack of being ageless. Not a line. Not a crease. Just the same tight-jawed profile and unyielding cinnamon eyes. His hair was russet shadow, all stubborn angles and ends – just like him. He had always looked the most dangerous of the three Seraphim. Secrets and inclinations engulfed him and made him who he was – but, for Lloyd, he fostered a burning nostalgia. The way he moved – truly the very way in which he walked – was always like he saw a straight road and only a straight road.

Lloyd drank him in. His eyes rove over the ensemble of darkest orchid, the weathered clasps, and the sword at his hip, the tone of his stance as he prowled that much farther into the room. It was hard for Lloyd to believe of himself that he was anything like his father, the way that Yuan said he was.

Kratos, on the other hand, was beginning to actually see it. He wouldn't say a word of it to the boy – didn't think that he had any right to – but he could finally recognize Aurion there on sight instead of only Anna, the way he always had. The twinge of guilt amplified. Perhaps he had been away too long this time. Heavens, but the boy had grown so much. There was never any doubt that it was Lloyd he was looking at when he walked through the doorway, but it did mentally jostle him to wrap his head around this young man.

Still, it wouldn't have made any difference if he had been around more. It never would, now. Fourteen years of his son's life had been lost to him in one bad hand. And now Mithos controlled the other hand. The formative years were as good as missed. He wouldn't even have had the nerve to apologize to Anna.

Lloyd was waiting, he noticed, as though he expected him to sit down or say or do something.

"You look well."

That earned him an uncertain look from his host.

Lloyd wasn't without his manners, though. Not even with his father. "I am, thanks." He paused, quiet, then spoke up again, "You do too."

Kratos nodded.

Lloyd folded his arms purely because he didn't know what to do with his hands. He kept his weight squarely against the desk as he minded Kratos.

"Yuan speaks to you of his work?"

"Umm… no. Well, sometimes. Nothing involved, though. Pulling something from archives isn't a security risk or anything. I'm allowed to be told that. He's very…" Lloyd freed one hand to make a nebulous gesture. "…vague."

"I see."

This was going well.

"How is… um…" And Lloyd looked like he was struggling to find words. "Your work?" **Whatever it is you're doing**.

Kratos knew that it wasn't really what Lloyd wanted to talk about. Not like Kratos would ever talk about it anyway. But Lloyd was trying to make conversation to pass the time, something that Kratos had never been very good at.

"It's progressing." Just as vague – if not vaguer – than Yuan.

Lloyd nodded slowly, as if he could glean something from that. He couldn't, but he felt like it should have some meaning. He rounded his shoulders in a shrug.

Kratos wished that he wouldn't slouch like that.

"I should go."

Lloyd was arrow-straight in a heartbeat. "Sure— I mean, he should be back by now, but I don't know how long he's actually gonna be."

"I can check with him later."

"No prob." Lloyd kept his voice light and free of any verdict. He actually did sound more like himself and less like the nervous boy who didn't know how to act around Kratos. "I'll let him know you were in."

He even walked Kratos to the entryway.

Almost as an afterthought, Kratos turned for a final inspection of his son.

"It's good to see you again," said the father.

Lloyd smiled Anna's smile. It wasn't til the visit was at a close, true enough, but he still smiled at him. For him.

"Good to see you too. It's been a while."

"Yes. It certainly has been. Take care, Lloyd."

"See ya."

Lloyd waited just inside, both hands against sleek panel. He wouldn't have been able to hear beyond the entry door anyway, yet there he stayed until he thought Kratos was gone. Given the circumstances, his mind was strangely devoid of riotous thoughts. He tended to overthink when it came to Kratos. He couldn't understand why he did it. He just always did.

With a restless sigh, he collapsed back onto the settee. There he remained until Yuan's return.

* * *

"For obvious reasons, the amassment of my labor is not kept here."

"Obviously not," Kratos intoned.

"I have your progress notes," began Yuan, handing over a particularly thick bundle of paperwork to Kratos.

Kratos took it and thumbed through the sheath, eyes flickering back and forth. "These are briefs."

"Individual statements are submitted to archives under my encryption. Any area can be pulled at your request."

"They are indexed?"

"Transportation, scheme… You'll know where my mind's been. All of it indexed."

"The dates and times are in your head."

"My friend, that is the simplest part," Yuan said with mock conviviality. "The partitions report is being vetted. Mithos, by his own grace and means, will be reviewing every case having to do with the Cannon. I'm handling the calculations myself, which can also be released at your request."

Not for the first time, Kratos glimpsed toward the settee where lay the sprawling shape of Lloyd. He had hooked his legs over the armrest and, despite the poor posture, appeared to be sleeping as peacefully as Kratos had ever seen him sleep through those long nights during the Journey. Head pillowed against an armrest, his shaggy dark hair glinted a mud color under the lighting and was long enough to weigh against his cheekbone.

Kratos didn't think that they should be conducting business with him in the room, yet it was for an entirely different reason than would be expected.

"I don't want to wake him," he confessed, suddenly.

"Your pardon?" Yuan had been talking as though Lloyd wasn't there. Now, in light of Kratos' words, he passed his clear emerald eyes over the form on the couch. Yuan's features, tight and stern, loosened just a little, Kratos noticed.

"He isn't sleeping."

Kratos was mystified. "How can you tell?"

Yuan stole another look at Lloyd. There was a sharp twist of the Seraph's shoulders, something that might pass for an amused shrug. "I just know."

For a stabbing moment, Kratos envied Yuan his familiarity with even the most insignificant of signs and tip offs concerning his son. During the Journey, Lloyd was something that Kratos studied – and he'd been able to tell when Lloyd was asleep by the campfire and when Lloyd was faking it. Similarly, Yuan could stand in this room and focus on work, even with Lloyd so close by, and feel his consciousness the same way that Kratos had once been able to. But Kratos wasn't like that anymore, so used to Lloyd.

"Can he hear us?"

"He is paying us no mind, no." Should he be entertained or annoyed?

Kratos seemed like he wanted some kind of explanation.

"He knows that we're here, and he hears the sound of our talking – his subconscious processes regular things – but he's half-asleep."

That sounded too scientific, even to Yuan's ears. Really, it wasn't that big of a deal. Kratos was just going to have to believe something simple for once. They had work to do.

"He does this all the time," Yuan summarized. "It's his favorite place for a cat nap."

He went back to sorting out Kratos' sheets as if that was the end of that. He was about to say something relevant to their work when:

"He's so… huge."

Yuan paused, first noticing that Kratos' gaze had not yet left his son. He glanced at Lloyd, then regarded Kratos wryly. "_Huge_? 'Tall,' yes, and I can understand 'long,' but 'huge' isn't a word I'd use. He's really all leg."

"You don't understand. The picture I have is that of a toddler in my arms."

"You traveled with him in Sylvarant. He wasn't a toddler then."

"I still had the same picture, even knowing him then. That was enough of a leap to make. Now I have to bridge something like this."

Yuan pondered that. A heart could only be broken so many ways before it wouldn't grow anymore. If anybody was stuck in the past, Yuan could slate Kratos as an obvious candidate.

"Does he make you nervous?"

And Kratos folded the squares of paper in his hands.

"No."

His manner changed. Whatever openness he'd let catch up to him was pushed back from whence it came. "I'll come to you after I'm acquainted with these records."

"Good," Yuan crossed his arms indifferently. "Commit them to memory. I won't allow the fruits of my labor to serve entropy."

Kratos tucked a folder under his arm. He stood straight and tall, and Yuan hazarded a guess that he was fraught with a tiredness that went way deeper than the shell of mortal man.

"Good luck," said Yuan.

"And to you." He made his way out, and as he did, he ignored Lloyd completely.

Once Kratos had departed and Yuan fell into the silent chore of his accounts, Lloyd spoke at last:

"You didn't tell me he was coming back today."

Eyes of pale green sought the face of the speaker.

There Lloyd lay, his body unstirred by his thoughts. Eyelids were relaxed, fixed, concealing bronzed orbs. His face was in quarter view; still, the outline of it was calm, from what Yuan could see, and his voice hadn't been accusatory; it had been strangely subdued instead.

Yuan looked away, endeavoring toward more stenographic triumphs. Lloyd oughtn't have to be told why that was. Then again, Yuan oughtn't be protecting him. It was never his place to do so. Both of them were out of line, but that was only because Kratos forced them into this rapport, forced them into this burden of co-op and kinship. Kratos had crossed that line first, but Yuan would not – _would not_ – abandon Lloyd to the mayhem that his father had left on his side of affairs.

_When can I stop lying to your son, Kratos?_

He couldn't do it anymore. He wouldn't offer false hope. If that meant keeping Lloyd ignorant of Kratos' itinerary, then so be it. Kratos had appointed no scapegoat here, so when Lloyd never seemed to blame Kratos for his absences, there was nowhere for him to direct his disappointment.

Yuan had to suffer it every time. _You don't get to see the look on his face. I get to. It's nothing that I want to see again._

"Are you angry?" the Seraph asked of the young man.

Then came a long pause – long enough that Yuan began to think Lloyd was. It wouldn't be that difficult a question to answer otherwise. Yuan could practically feel Lloyd searching within himself for that anger.

Finally:

"No."

His voice was still so quiet – deep and quiet, without a tremor of regret. Whatever he found inside himself, it hadn't been a betrayal of the petty kind. But for Yuan to withhold information about his father, and for Lloyd to reciprocate no admissions of anger or hurt whatsoever… was odd. Yuan thought, in fact, that it'd probably be better for Lloyd to confront him, wearing his grievances openly, and be over and done with it.

But it had been a strong "no," and it meant that – whatever pain Lloyd was feeling – he was internalizing it.

He was a creature more complicated than any of them assumed.

"Is that why you were cranky today?" Lloyd asked.

The Seraph inwardly contemplated the point of the question Lloyd stuck between them, even as he outwardly carried on with what his hands were doing.

The fluency by which Yuan functioned was almost like a ceremonial thing. It was his daily operation. He had a way of doing things that maintained a certain severity. His fashion of control was hard for Lloyd to put a finger on; Lloyd could grasp the idea of it, could tell that it was exclusive to Yuan and that it cut him into the perfect material to lead the Grand Cardinals and Renegades alike, but it wasn't something that Lloyd could well describe.

Yuan contrived tidied up harmony, a kind of pressed-out discipline. When faced with contingency, he used that quality of himself for improvisation, and he seldom – if ever – lost his head. He wasn't an extremist like Mithos. He hadn't an ounce of petulance in his being. He could scheme as well as either of the other Seraphim, but he always courted regulation with it. Structure was his doctrine.

This was probably why the other side of him felt clever when he outthought the system, the laws of order, and probably why he had an overdeveloped wit and _would_ laugh in the face of irony. There was a streak of unpredictability in his humor, to the point where even the Cardinals couldn't tell if they were being mocked or not. It labeled him as somewhat standoffish. But as Lloyd got more and more used to Yuan, he found the buoyancy that went along with him – and even though he couldn't fully understand them, he recognized the characteristics that embellished the overall presentation.

So, though Yuan hadn't necessarily been in a mood today, Lloyd noticed that he had been more detached than usual.

He acted no differently now.

"He did present a deadline."

"Oh…" Lloyd opened his eyes to the wall.

A change of topic was in order. The boy was being extremely uncommunicative. It wasn't a grudge or anything small-minded like that. He wasn't trying to get back at Yuan. Maybe, just like the father, the son was simply tired to the marrow with the same kind of wear. It was a caustic irking. Only an Aurion version of a father-son relationship would induce this much strain on said father and son.

"Don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Not until Mithos sends for me. I don't get why he goes through with this. He should just put my refusal on standing order. Then I'd only have to see him if I ever change my mind. I'm sick of putting up with him every day of my life for no reason."

"Yes, he could certainly do better company for himself."

Lloyd finally pivoted his head and addressed the Seraph's jab with a glare. "Hey, I'm great company!" His vigor came flooding back all at once. "Admit it – you'd be so bored without me! You would go math-mad like a robot! You have no clue where you'd be without me!"

Yuan internally sighed. His eyes passively beheld the face that, despite its changing, had become so familiar to him.

"You are probably right, Lloyd Irving. You are probably right."


	12. Chapter 12

Both Kratos and Yuan had to tilt their heads back in order to take in the impossible height of the instrument directly in front of them. This close to it, even Cruxis' two Seraphim felt like insubstantial parasites. Its vastness and girth spanned the length of several men, and its summit was near twenty-five meters high, or eight stories. It was like a great, wicked disfigurement jutting up from the earth in rings of brass and concrete, wearing steel and girder trusses as its armor. Buttresses as thick as the trunks of giant sequoias surrounded and reinforced its temporary resting place at Centrum.

Insubstantial parasites, indeed – yet _they_ were going to feed _it_.

"Cursed scion of Thor," Yuan swore cheerlessly, and Kratos barely heard him over the post-dawn noises of construction in the courtyard but he seemed as if to make a sound of agreement that was lost on clamorous air.

Courtyard was a pretty tag for the makeshift enclosure that so far cloistered the Mana Cannon with its high walls. It was really just a hoodless expanse built against Centrum, one of many similar wards the Desians had created. Carbon shreddings littering the ground were the rapid response of a hasty departure, for the moment the Cannon's transport was complete the Angels and Seraphim fell in – not that they weren't already handling the affair with tight reigns – and the area was sectioned off. Besides, the Desians already had their work cut out for them. They were under Lord Yggdrasill's orders, and Lord Yggdrasill's orders were as plain as the noses on their faces: they had to build. Centrum was expanding outwards, like an overflowing anthill of foreboding. Fortifications ringed it against the rest of Tethe'alla as the Desians built additions in a circling direction, and the increasing spread of caspian blue and ochre-colored tents resembled countless drops of floodwater in a desert. Impermanent barracks had been erected in front of the north-west bulwark currently under construction. There were beams, stacked straw, the smell of melted metals, cheers and jeers all around Kratos and Yuan, yet they did not tear their eyes away from the ominous weapon before them. And, to the surrounding Desians, it felt like the two Cruxis leaders had been standing and staring for hours. It was a wonder their necks weren't stiff.

Cloudless eyes, jade like a forest pond, scaled the length of the Cannon. Sunlight glinted in the tiny alloy and mineral fissures of the construct. To Yuan, the beams securing the Cannon were like arms – the arms of a god wringing the neck of his child.

"To think that we have resorted to this damnation," he commented dryly, like a person who had solved a puzzle only to find that it led him full circle to a less than appealing solution.

Kratos was all polished calm. He stood with his arms hanging at his sides and looked much like he was attending his own funeral. "You haven't. I have." He was garbed in a wool that held black dye, but he didn't break a sweat. It was too early in the morning to sweat.

Yuan crossed his arms, as if to defend himself against the insanity. He, too, wore a black coat. There wasn't a line in his face or a wrinkle in his skylight hair as it hung sleekly from its hold low at his neck – nothing to give away what he was thinking – but that didn't matter to Kratos. Kratos knew. And Kratos agreed.

The two of them fell into another hole of silence as they studied the structure. They were a pair of darkness-clad sculptures, dwarfed by an alien of technological pursuit unlike any they had experienced. Seconds slid into minutes again. The Seraphim did not move – hardly seemed to blink – but Yuan knew that Kratos already had several half-hatched eggs in his basket.

Yuan shook his head as he gazed upwards. It was all he could do, short of whistling.

"Rodyle. That son of a bitch."

"May he rest in peace," added Kratos in a murmur, though it seemed a contrary time for all due respect.

"Rodyle was mad."

"Maybe not, if this works."

"_More_, if this works."

Kratos finally moved a little. He leaned his weight on one leg, made as if about to turn away from the thing, but didn't. He flexed the fingers of his fists, and his dark eyes wouldn't leave it. To anyone but the Angels of Cruxis, his total absence of expression would have been unsettling.

"I got a look at some of Lloyd's drawings," Kratos stated without even the courtesy of a shift in tone or countenance. He was wild-carding – worse than the weather because the weather couldn't be expected to adhere to an etiquette of social behavior. But Kratos had no fear with Yuan. He'd go straight from a sunny day into the thunderstorm of a story without so much as an indicator that the topic had changed – that is, if the topic was the safe being of his son.

He could be a strong father to Lloyd… if he would let himself be.

Yuan's scrutinizing eyes combed horizontally across the appendages of the scaffolding. "Interesting, aren't they? But art is art. In his defense, he had no means of color."

"You've seen them, then?"

"Of course I have."

"Then you know what he is actually drawing."

"I do."

Kratos steered all his attention toward Yuan. The reservation was almost completely gone. There was finally a hint of emotion there in him, one of incredulity or accusation. He was going to have to ask for an explanation from Yuan for something that he didn't think he should have to. "And you haven't stopped him?"

"I haven't spoken a word to him on the matter. This is what he's decided to do."

It had been simple for Kratos to decipher Lloyd's drawings at Yuan's. They really _were_ abstract art, cleverly enough. They resembled just a bunch of lines over and over again cropping out in different diagonals, but it didn't take Kratos long to latch onto something recognizable about the intensity of shading over certain angles. In barely a heartbeat, he cracked the code hidden in the scattering of lines: Lloyd was drawing a map of Centrum. The entire layout, every hallway, was buried between false lines, but it was there. And there was no other reason for Lloyd to secretly construct a map of Centrum apart from planning to escape it.

"He'll be killed, Yuan," Kratos declared. Barely checked emotion was suggested only by the tightening of his voice. All concern crumbled to ash regarding the beast before them. Instead it was the beast growing inside Kratos, sickening him to his soul, that took high priority now – the beast of parental fear, and it wasn't something that he could put down. With Lloyd, he never could. By the Spirits, he wanted Yuan to race back to the kid at this very moment and yell some sense into him. Because Yuan _could_. Yuan was the best way to get his son to listen – probably the _only_ way, at this point. Kratos fostered no illusions that he had any control over Lloyd anymore. It wasn't because father and son both were bullheaded. It was because Kratos' grip had been slipping from the very beginning, and all these years later there was nothing left to hold onto. That was just how it was.

"He isn't as stupid as you think he is," peaceably inserted Yuan.

"You need to stop him."

"No, I don't, Kratos." Now it was Yuan's turn to be too-patient, too-testy. His eyes did not flash the way that Kratos' did. His tone did not change into gravel. But he was certain of what he was about to say. Kratos realized that immediately. "That's where you're wrong. You need to back off."

If ever there was the possibility of Kratos being taken by surprise, this rebuttal would be a high bullet in the list. Strange enough that it was coming from an ally. Yuan might be unpredictable to everyone else, but not to Kratos. In fact, the two of them usually shared the same conclusions. Their routes might be a little different in getting there – and their _solutions_ were another story altogether, true – but their interpretations of a problem were usually the same.

This time, however, they weren't adding up.

"What are you talking about?"

"You made your decision long ago. You gave Lloyd over to Cruxis." It was a painful truth that had to be said. Yuan didn't even flinch.

Neither did Kratos.

"I never wanted him here," he argued. Dashes of justifiable indignation peppered his tone of voice.

"Believe me, Lloyd understands that. He appears not to have blamed you – I don't understand why not – but now the decision falls to him, and he will fight for it. Neither you nor I can blame him for that. He's taken his situation into his own hands, and he's chosen to try to escape with his life."

"He can't do that."

"It isn't your place to say so. It isn't mine. Really, you didn't see this coming, even after you chose to do nothing? He gave you your chance. You forfeited him. Were I him, I'd do the same – or die trying."

"He won't make it two steps past the inner wall before he is caught."

"Maybe he won't, but maybe he will. The only reason for his fairly accurate depictions of Outer Centrum is because he has a contact on the outside."

Kratos lifted his head at this new piece of information. He was mindful of his son's place in things – equally mindful of where he hadn't one. Outer Centrum was certainly restricted territory, but Yuan's deductions were seldom wrong, especially when he investigated off the record. Kratos searched the quiet of Yuan's eyes, forcing himself to the understanding that – even though it felt like it – his friend was not conspiring against him for his son.

Lloyd was doing that on his own, the blasted child.

"How is that possible?"

"Many moons ago he befriended a Desian in the kitchens," Yuan levelly divulged. "The Desian was made to switch assignment and currently works on the Outer Centrum construction. I believe that Lloyd gets his information from him."

"He's risking _both_ their lives, then," Kratos lamented, without ever actually sounding anything other than displeased.

Yuan turned towards Kratos and gave him a reproachful look, one that seemed to demand Kratos open up to the story or else they wouldn't get anywhere. He didn't necessarily have to warm to the schemes of his son, but Yuan would appreciate him to be more… suggestible. He waited until Kratos locked eyes with him. They stopped making any pretenses whatsoever of studying the Mana Cannon.

"I mean to say that I believe Lloyd manipulates him for the information. I don't think this Desian of his has any idea what Lloyd is doing to him."

Kratos was stumped for speech. It sounded very un-Lloyd. Unfortunately, he couldn't see past the rash, boisterous, all-for-one-and-one-for-all youth of the Journey to be able to credit his son as any rank of strategist.

"I told you, Kratos, your son isn't stupid."

Kratos ruminated over the notion and unsaid details. Maybe Lloyd wasn't exactly stupid, but he was no genius – not if he thought that he could outmaneuver all of Cruxis. He may have been off to a good start, considering what little with which he had to work, but the odds were stacked too high against him.

"I can't believe you didn't bring this to my attention immediately," Kratos went on, singlemindedly. "He could execute this fool escape plan of his without a warning. Where is he now?"

Yuan shook his head, conspicuously calm given the circumstances. "I'm not worried."

"Why wouldn't you be?" And Kratos risked sounding contentious.

"Lloyd won't try it while certain people are present in Centrum."

"You are speaking of Mithos?"

"No, not him."

"Who, then?"

"The Desian, for one."

"His mole?"

"His _friend_ – and you know how Lloyd feels about his friends: loyal to the end."

"He doesn't want to risk getting a Desian in trouble?"

"Friends don't compromise friends. Lloyd will wait until his Desian friend is shipped out on another assignment."

Kratos seemed to digest all this without finding discrepancy. It lined up quite well with the way Lloyd pictured the ideal, after all.

Then: "Who else does he think he's protecting?"

"Me."

"You?"

"Mithos can't overlook that Lloyd and I spend a good deal of time together. Think about it: if Lloyd vanished from Centrum, the first person to be put to question would be me. With my resources, I would be a prime suspect of aiding Lloyd in his escape. After everything I've done for him, Lloyd wouldn't do that to me." Yuan suddenly smiled one of his sharp, humorless smiles. "It would be terrible manners."

Kratos looked to his dusk-colored boots, in brooding thought. His miss-nothing eyes noticed another scrap of metal that glittered like hot iron under the sun, just next to his foot.

"For the last time, Kratos, I know that you don't believe it but Lloyd isn't as stupid as you think. If you can't trust him then at the least trust me. I understand him; the way he thinks. I know him."

The sting in Kratos' chest… It felt like another piece of him went cold.

* * *

"Lloyd Aurion, will you surrender your Exsphere this morning?"

"No, Yggdrasill, I will not."

"Will you surrender it tonight?"

"You shouldn't even bother asking."

"I will do as I must."

"Then so will I."

It was another unsuspecting day. And Lloyd was plowing through his morning routine. He was more irritated than usual, as he hadn't even eaten breakfast before his summons came. He didn't like the feeling of being hungry – especially not in the presence of Mithos Yggdrasill. It brought back too many undesirable memories. He didn't like stomach acid in an empty stomach. Stomach acid was a paste that never felt like something physiological. Instead it felt like fear trying to claw its painful way out of him.

Lloyd stood center room, dressed in midnight brown slacks and a sleeveless white shirt. He was a little chilled, but it wasn't because of the temperature. Every time he set foot on the same floor as Mithos, Lloyd's life became an option. And he knew it. For whatever reason – and he still pondered over this – Mithos hadn't killed him. Mithos didn't even act like he was going to. Because Lloyd couldn't pinpoint exactly why this was, however, it meant that he couldn't bank on his good luck. Mithos could just as easily change his mind. If Lloyd frustrated him long enough, he just might. And so, Lloyd had learned to forfeit his life every time he answered his summons. It was an exhausting process, like a mental reset, cutting at all sources of his emotions like short-circuiting wires. That was partially why it was always so grueling going up against Mithos day in and day out. It normally left them both with bad tastes in their mouths, without what they wanted, and it left Lloyd feeling like he had just been hung out to dry under a merciless desert sun. Yet here he was, still alive every time he left the room, and that was a good sign. He could relax a little, but not enough to risk being rude in wording. He could relax a little, but he still answered Mithos' questions in turn.

Yet he got his message across every single time: no, you can't have it, and you won't ever have it.

"You had me convinced back then," Mithos remarked, innocuously. The bite of his voice was dulled so much that Lloyd could almost believe it didn't carry a point.

He knew that he shouldn't take the bait – there was nothing like being goaded by Mithos – but Lloyd responded anyway. "'Bout what?"

Mithos leaned back in his seat. He didn't always sit through their meetings, yet even sitting he still resembled a viper about to spring – a sapphire viper presented in a gloss silk tunic of deep ocean blue. His every muscle was poised, whereas Lloyd's were knotted. He stretched his back, while Lloyd wasn't even allowed to lounge. He preferred to keep his hair down, and Lloyd couldn't help but think that Colette's hair was a nicer color.

"Your friends – I was convinced that you cared for them."

Mithos saw the challenge. And Lloyd saw the struggle.

"This has nothing to do with them. I don't want to talk about them."

Mithos seized the moment. And Lloyd dropped it flat as though it were poison.

"As is evidenced by your noncooperation. I truly thought they held some value to you."

There was a stirring of heat inside him, a call to passion. He intended to suppress it. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, focusing instead on exploring pain of the physical kind. He could handle the physical kind.

"To be frank, I had assumed you'd trade your dead mother for your friends at first chance."

He could feel himself go hot all over. He was pretty sure that Mithos could pick out the redness settling over his cheeks. He bit harder.

"Likely Genis Sage is disappointed. As well, Colette Brunel."

He blushed more over Colette. He tasted blood.

Mithos stared pointedly at Lloyd. Somehow he made it look like he wasn't playing some underhanded game with him, even when he did. Nothing so far that Mithos had said was a lie, but it was certainly, deviously deceptive, enough to pull at Lloyd's strings.

"I doubt very much that you and I will get anywhere today. You are dismissed."

And, just like that, Lloyd's optional life was stomped all over, revalidated, and reduced. He spun to go even as two Desians entered to retrieve him. With a ducked head and heated face – the picture of defeat even though he had won out again – Lloyd lurched out of the domed hall.

Mithos flaunted the way he always did. And Lloyd stole the show.

As soon as he was clear of the attaching passageway, Lloyd planted his left fist into the wall and rested his head while the pain came to empty it. **Dammit**, he cursed inwardly. He didn't know if he'd felt more helpless with Colette during the World Regeneration Journey or if being here in Centrum took first. Here, he couldn't do a thing for himself. He guessed that even every step he took was on some monitor screen somewhere. He needed to get out of here. He _had_ to get out of here. And for someone as impulsive as him, he was doing a remarkable job with patience – except, of course, that it was getting him nowhere.

Exhaling all in a rush, Lloyd opened upset eyes to the Exsphere – that beautiful, powerful thing that did absolutely nothing for him now except to make his life a living hell. It was his ornament, his soldier's decoration… his cherished. He swallowed, narrowed his eyes, and dropped his hand down to his stomach.

"It'd be nice if you served some kind of purpose here like he seems to think you can," Lloyd mumbled bitterly, though the Exsphere had no ears to hear. "Like blow this place up from the inside."

He walked as he nursed his bad temper, and he nursed his bad temper as he walked. He navigated Centrum's halls like he could do it blindly. He could, if he had to. The place was an easily recalled memorization now. He had "abstract art" to thank for that.

"Or make me less hungry once in a while," Lloyd continued muttering as he approached the kitchens. His pessimism only helped make his temper worse, but he chose no other way of tending his injuries after a bout with Mithos. It wasn't like he could lash out at the esteemed leader of Cruxis.

"Or make him—"

"Lloyd! You're late!"

The disgruntled Aurion, all a-frown as he entered the kitchens, glanced through the first screen of steam. He picked out Osha's features on the other side of it, and maybe his brow became a little less furrowed when he did. "So're you. Shouldn't you be outta here by now?"

Osha maneuvered his way over to Lloyd while carrying a plate of what was left of his breakfast. He already had his gloves on. "I'm on my way. The Tethe'allans are slowing us down."

Lloyd swiped a strip of bacon from Osha's plate and hungrily scarfed it down. "What're they doing?" he asked with a full mouth for his empty belly.

Osha, mock offended, shielded his plate with his hand. "They're out there every morning now, protesting. Meltokians, mainly. They want us to stop building."

"That makes sense."

"What?" Osha cupped his ear against the buzzing pandemonium of the kitchens first thing in the morning. This gave Lloyd the opportunity to steal another bacon strip from him before signaling him to walk.

"Nothing." Lloyd chewed his bacon, looking as if he were thinking things over. "It's just that they obviously don't want us here. I guess they could find any excuse to protest us."

"They could at least go through the proper channels and take it up with the Grand Cardinals or the King," Osha complained, though not unpleasantly. "They hinder our set-up and break-down, and we need to finish the north compartments. There's a big storm coming."

"Well, how much work is left?" As regrettable as it was, Lloyd put the idea of eating on hold. Walking Osha out of the dining hall was more important right now. "There's a ton of you guys, isn't there? Shouldn't be that hard to finish."

Osha gave him a black look. He could've pouted and it would have served the same impression. Lloyd didn't have to take his faces seriously – Osha was never truly mad at him. "You wouldn't know. It isn't that easy. We're finishing up the northern foundation, but we've got to build up – an easy forty-four more meters at least. Stone-ballasted."

"Why, if it's supposed to be a watchtower?"

"I didn't say that." He saved his food for the second time from Lloyd's clutches. "And I don't know. But you're probably right. Something about the Grand Tethe'alla Bridge being right there. And anyway," Osha finally surrendered his plate to Lloyd and refitted his gloves in a hurry as they walked. "There may be a ton of us, but the Seraphim had us working on their steel cage in a hurry so we haven't had much of a chance to get the north done. Speaking of which…" Osha looked sideways at Lloyd. "I hear that Lord Kratos is back."

Lloyd forked at the cold eggs on the plate. He noticed the change in his friend's demeanor, decided that he didn't like it, and waited for his point. "Yeah, so?"

"Just that it's hard not to notice." It felt like Osha was stalling. "Everything always gets weird when all the Seraphim are here."

Lloyd shrugged, and somehow he made it a decisive movement. "Doesn't really affect me." He scooped egg into his mouth, decided that he didn't like that either, and continued to wait for Osha's point.

Osha blinked inquisitive eyes and stared Lloyd down extra hard. His curiosity was a concrete well, filling fast with floodwater. It was apparent that he was waiting for something from his younger friend. "You didn't notice that Lord Kratos was back?"

The Aurion's mood took a turn back in the wrong direction. "Yeah, I noticed _that_. But why does it suddenly matter?"

"Well… aren't you glad that he's back?"

Lloyd had quickly figured out what Osha was trying to do. It took him by surprise. And he immediately hated it. Recently, the Desian had started acting strangely around him when Kratos was in Centrum. It was a fault innocently made – Osha just wanted Lloyd to have the chance to say the first word – but Lloyd was sick of being manipulated, and his temper was bleak today. Had it not been for the approach, Lloyd might not have been so averse to the subject in question, awkward though it was. Instead he felt like he was being forced into something, which turned him completely off the idea.

"I don't see what his business in Centrum has to do with me." He played right back.

"Oh, come on, Lloyd." Now Osha was beginning to sound a little insulted.

"What, Osha?"

"It's not like we haven't noticed."

"Who noticed what?"

"Whatever." The course of conversation was abandoned with all abruptness. "I'll see you around." Osha shook his head and turned off at the next intersection of passageways. His pace was more hyper than usual. Lloyd could tell that he had miffed him.

Why was it suddenly so important? Lloyd gritted his teeth together, and the frown on his features deepened even more. There was hot anger in his expressive dark eyes. This just wasn't his morning. A big storm was coming, indeed. His own personal rage kept transforming itself endlessly into different emotions that wouldn't stifle out.

There was no mistaking what Osha wanted: for Lloyd to admit that he was the true offspring of Kratos Aurion; a Seraph's child. He was borderline Kratos in appearance anyway. And therein lay the problem. It was as if, because of it, Osha suddenly noticed, suddenly made the connection between the Cruxis Seraph and one Lloyd the Prisoner who was too incurably similar to him for Osha _not_ to notice. Lloyd was physically maturing more and more as the weeks flew by, and everyone's reminder of that fact was Kratos himself whenever he traversed Centrum. It was getting difficult for Lloyd to hide who he was anymore – if he could still hide it at all. And it was as Osha said: it's not like the rest of the Desians hadn't noticed.

Lloyd circled down another hall, where it was calmer, and touched his face with his free hand, felt the angles there and the prominent features.

_I didn't expect to find so much of your father in you._

_ I didn't know that I had any of him in me._

He was walking around wearing Kratos' face. It wasn't like he even had to own up to anything. Everything was on display already. The display was still a younger, smaller, softer version of his father's face, but the nose was still there and the jaw was still the same, if a little rounder, and the eyes were unmistakable, and the shoulders were on their way.

**Why hide at all?**

Lloyd removed his hand from his face and brushed his long bangs away, all too instantly astounded by what his own thoughts and impulses had been. Because there was no excuse for his flash inclination to deny blood ties with Kratos… not unless, subconsciously—

**Do I resent Kratos?**

When it came down to it, he'd never thought much on the matter. Things just were what they were. But perhaps there _was_ more to it. Perhaps there _was_ a reason for the sudden flood of anger directed at Osha, or the words that he refused to say, or the sensitivity of anything having to do with Kratos, or that _feeling_.

He didn't know what it was. It was just… cold there. Sometimes.

Maybe a child could only be rejected so many times by the father before the father was rejected by the child.

Cold…

Like a son resenting his father.

Another few minutes and he was inside Yuan's chambers, just as starving and just as exhausted, as though the day was ending rather than just beginning, and half-frightened by his lack of control, justification, answers, understanding himself, everything.

"Our Lord Yggdrasill was generous with you today?" came Yuan's familiar, spectacularly uninterested voice from behind his desk. His first glance at Lloyd must have given him a gauge of the boy's mood.

"Boundless," Lloyd sighed, unwilling to break it down for Yuan. But that was oftentimes the case. "Now I'm hungry and tired and don't know what to do with myself."

Yuan didn't say anything, didn't have to. Mistress of Mercy, but he would never have his fill of the family complex, whether he liked it or not. It took enough to kick Kratos off Lloyd's tracks, and now – while he was still on the topic of Aurion – he was tasked with setting Lloyd straight.

The way that Lloyd folded up on the settee hinted that today would take a little more.

"The King sent me home with a basket of goodies to show how much he appreciates me."

It was a would-be perk of playing ambassador, except that Yuan couldn't care less. All of it was contrived, just like the King's stories. The host countries never failed to gift Yuan, whether or not they used his time sincerely. Most commonly they were token gestures. Lloyd always got more out of them than Yuan did.

"He sent you cheeses," Lloyd noted, after having located and rummaged through the basket.

"I told you I'm a very important man."

"I see that." Lloyd refrained from giving Yuan a weird look. He just went along with it. "Did you fix all his problems, then?"

The Seraph, conservative and unimpressed as ever, tilted his chin. "I can't. In the end, he won't let me."

"Why, what's the problem?" Lloyd sliced at the semi-hard block. His breakfast sure wasn't amounting to much.

"His Meltokians are harassing our Desians. Don't pretend that you don't know that. You go to the kitchens every day."

"Yeah, yeah," Lloyd played it off. "But nobody's got rocks yet, right?"

Getting to his feet, Yuan fastened the clasps of his coat. He favored Lloyd with recycled patience. "It's 'he who casts the first stone,' Lloyd, and you aren't applying it to the appropriate context. Rather I'm concerned with 'an eye for an eye' right now."

"So it's your job to keep the protestors from turning into rioters?" questioned Lloyd, wrinkling his nose at the taste of the applewood smoked cheddar but eating it anyway. No arguing with need. No being picky.

"More or less, that is so."

"That's stupid. I can tell you that you're not getting paid enough for this – whatever pay you get." It was easy enough to joke about – on Yuan's part because he could be a little unconventional, and on Lloyd's part because he was so far removed from reality at this point that anything beyond Centrum's halls was another dimension completely.

Then, with sudden, blossoming openness, Lloyd let curiosity take him by the lead. "What's Kratos' job?"

The emerald-eyed Seraph resisted every initial reaction – mystification, a grimace, whatever it may have been. He scanned over Lloyd, formulating an answer that was safe to speak.

Nothing but the truth.

"Derris-Kharlan is his job. You were already told that."

"Yeah, but what does that mean? How come nobody tells me what he does except to say that he manages a dying comet? Shouldn't I know?"

There he went again – throwing around his weight because he was family to Kratos. He probably didn't even realize that he was doing it, so Yuan grasped that it didn't happen out of spite. Instead, Lloyd did it like he belonged to something – he did it obliviously; naively, but honestly, like a tag that was weathered and torn but persistently there at the neck. When these instances came to pass, Yuan knew that Lloyd deserved the truth.

He pressed a finger against his temple and came over to watch the mess Lloyd made at the table. "Do you want to know?" he put it to him plainly.

Lloyd's expression faltered for only a split-second, mainly because Yuan's was a blank slate. The Cruxis Angel stood crisply, garnering all of Lloyd's awareness. Yuan never teased him about anything important, which meant that this was a very real offer. The young Aurion dropped the butter knife silently onto the table, along with his elbows. He folded his hands, the left atop the right. His Exsphere gleamed to match his eyes.

"Yes."

In fact, he would.

Without a show, Yuan leveled himself upon the chair across from Lloyd. He didn't need time to think about what to say – not this time. Per Lloyd's request, he simply proceeded, as blunt and forthright as ever.

"You should be told that Kratos is leaving very soon for Derris-Kharlan."

"That's no surprise" was Lloyd's only return. And it wasn't. He found that the shock wore very thin.

"This time is different from the others," Yuan continued. He gathered Lloyd up through straightforward, tea-leaf green eyes, his expression unshining and controlled – ever a staple of identity. "This time, you should be told, he will be long gone."

"He always is."

"Not like this. He's taking the Mana Cannon with him."

Now this was the juice of the fruit, the meat of the stew, the cream of the crop. Lloyd's countenance opened, lax with a cross between awe and surprise.

"You mean… Rodyle's…?"

"Yes. You would have heard of it. It is an impractical weapon to use because of its cost. In all likelihood, powering a single shot would exhaust the mana of the world on which it is anchored."

He knew of Rodyle's Mana Cannon. It was like a taboo, even among the Grand Cardinals. It boiled Lloyd's blood in abhorrence and fear that such a thing existed – nevermind _how_. The very thought of Cruxis buddying up with the beast… It was outrageous. It was worse than irony. It was the potential for very, very great calamity. But he could hope that Yuan somehow had everything under control. It was under his watchful eye now, after all. Lloyd couldn't imagine trusting anyone else with it – _none_ of the Grand Cardinals.

"He spent his life building something that nobody on either world would ever use," Lloyd snorted, his mischief-brown eyes trying for criticism. "So, what, does Yggdrasill give up? Is Kratos finally gonna blow Derris-Kharlan out of the universe?"

"His wish is for the opposite."

"Then… what? You said he's taking the Cannon with him." Lloyd had a feeling that Yuan was about to talk in circles.

"The theory is that we can stop the Cannon."

"What the hell…?" Perplexed, Lloyd interjected, slight of tongue and all. First they wanted to use it, then they didn't. Evidently he was right about the talking-in-circles thing. "Then don't take it in the first place…!"

"I mean that we can literally _stop_ the Cannon, Lloyd." The boy wasn't aggravating him. Not yet. He'd had a lot of practice with him – with Aurions in general. "The Mana Cannon fires by absorbing ungodly amounts of mana from its host world, focusing that mana into a beam, and finally releasing that beam at its target," Yuan explained, with a trust-this air. "If we can disable its trigger into phase three, the Cannon could cycle its second phase interminably. It could serve other uses."

It was the bane of Rodyle's existence. It was the scourge of Niflheim.

"You've… _tweaked_… the Mana Cannon?"

"Well, Lord Yggdrasill had a hand in it," Yuan put in, modestly.

"He turned a cannon into a vacuum." Preposterous.

"That's it." Preposterously _it_. Somehow there was a smirk in Yuan's voice even though there wasn't one on his face.

"Whoa, whoa— But if he doesn't wanna blow up Derris-Kharlan—" And here Lloyd was confused again. "If he wants 'just the opposite,' like you said, why does he want the Cannon to suck up all of Derris-Kharlan's mana? I thought the comet running out of mana is the whole reason it needs saving."

"You're exactly right. That reason is why Kratos will attempt to invent mana via the Cannon."

Lloyd's eyebrows shot up behind his self-willed bangs. "And how the hell does he plan to do that?"

"He will channel from another source."

"What source?"

"The sun."

"_What_?_"_ The young man's voice jumped an octave and cracked, and he spent the next several moments clearing his throat until his voice deepened back to normal range – not without enlisting an expression that showed Yuan how much he wasn't buying it. "The sun? _Our_ sun?"

Yuan went on as if he was never interrupted, still irrefutably low-key. He'd had a long, long time not only to adjust to the idea but also to work with it. It still sounded like a prophet's tale to him, too, but he knew the sciences behind the reality. There was actually good math. "For aeons we've been led to believe that the sun is the only true infinite source."

"But it's not the Tree."

"It was there before the Tree – it cultivated the Tree – at every world's beginning."

"But the energy is different from our mana. It's _not_ the Tree."

"Hence the Mana Cannon's reprogramming. If it can focus the energy of the sun into something akin to mana, usable by man, can you imagine what that will mean?"

"No…"

"Cruxis will have created a new source – an infinite source."

"A false Tree." Lloyd crossed his arms. "A false Tree made out of heat and machinery. Why is Derris-Kharlan so important to Yggdrasill? Is it true about his sister?"

"It is."

"Then it's true that she's _dead_. Why hold onto the rock? Seems to me like it's a lot of unnecessary trouble."

Yuan's brow slanted. Pupils that swam amid splendorous pools of chlorophyll shot down to Lloyd's hand – his _left_ hand. There, they beheld his Exsphere, and Lloyd suddenly felt naked to his indiscretion. Like a rifle, he cocked himself back, hiding his hands in his lap. His face was tight in places – and, Yuan thought, he would have wrinkles far before his time if he didn't give up this habit of scowling his defense through every blunder. It was a well-blessed favor to him the Seraph didn't say the words that would have reduced him to emotional savagery. They both recognized the hypocrisy that had been spoken.

"Do you know what nostalgia is?" Yuan asked, more tactfully than Lloyd could have hoped.

"Does it have something to do with the nose?"

It was the Lloyd Irving brand of guesswork. Yuan's teeth showed just a little. "Nevermind the question. Just remember that there will always be more to life than our memories." Because some people, like Kratos and Mithos, never seemed to.

Lloyd nodded that he would, for future reference, remember.

"So Kratos is going to invent mana for Derris-Kharlan using the Cannon's storage-and-focus phase on the sun," Lloyd reiterated. It sounded ridiculous.

"I'm coordinating his embarkation with the orbit of Arkha to direct the comet within range."

"The moon, Arkha?"

"We need Arkha to transport the Cannon. By themselves, our teleporters are unable to send such a vast thing to Derris-Kharlan."

"Can't you just sit it on the pad?" This time Lloyd spoke out of experience. He'd never had much problem with Desian technology.

"Our teleporters activate when mana is detected for transfer," Yuan explained. "You and I don't have to think about it because all living things are naturally infused with mana. Per contra, manmade objects like the Cannon must be cloaked for the pads to recognize them. The Ranches were set up in the same way, with cloaked stock, so the Cardinals knew where everything was at all times. When something moved, it tripped security. To that extent, the pads doubled as a tracking system."

"So can't you cloak the Cannon in mana?"

"Realistically, no – not sufficiently enough to move it across space on its own, not even with Kratos safeguarding it. If we launch it when Arkha nears our gravitational field, however, the Cannon can make the full journey from the pad to Derris-Kharlan under the shadow of Arkha's mana."

Lloyd nodded like he understood – and maybe he did. "It does sound pretty time-consuming." No wonder they all seemed so busy.

"I'll do what I can, but Kratos and I expect to lose contact with each other midway through the pathway."

"How come?"

"Our transmissions are based on line-of-sight. The dummy projection shows that a segment of Arkha's orbit will align Derris-Kharlan with the sun. We can't find a way around the overlap. Once Derris-Kharlan is caught in the middle of the eclipse, we'll have no contact with it."

And thus was Yuan's concession, only that Lloyd know there was a higher calling to which Kratos gave obeisance. By no means was it an excuse. Not once did Yuan imply that the salvation of Derris-Kharlan was more important than Lloyd's own. He never made that suggestion, nor would he ever. Again, the Seraphim claimed different solutions, each for himself. Kratos was that much less likely to make Lloyd a point of prerogative. That meant it fell on Yuan to explain matters and convince the son that the father wasn't all cold shoulder. For all that, Yuan had his own creative freedom. However he chose to go about it.

"Got it," Lloyd modulated, replaying the literally outlandish story in his head. It was too perfect for anyone other than Yggdrasill to authorize. And it was too perfectly ambitious for Yuan to have made up. And Kratos…

Well, Lloyd didn't know much about Kratos. Kratos was capable of just about anything. From tough times to tundra, one world or the other, he could play devil's advocate or the iron behind a cause. Lloyd wasn't sure if he could peg Kratos any one way. His loyalties couldn't be bought… but neither could they be changed. Lloyd felt he'd personally tested that. Kratos was untouchable, unapproachable… unavoidable.

"You're taking it better than I'd imagined you would."

Lloyd looked up at the Seraph, not having realized that his burning stare had sunk to the tabletop. "Well," he gave pause, searched for the words to describe what he was feeling, and ended up only with the same that he'd given Osha:

"It doesn't really affect me."

Yuan sensed enough not to dispute Lloyd's claim. It was his father he spoke of, after all, and if he felt nothing of it then things were only getting easier.

Or else they were going horribly wrong.


	13. Chapter 13

Mithos Yggdrasill expected to be obeyed. For centuries, that was the way it had worked. It was obedience derived from terror, but – as despicable as he could be – it would be slander to say that he ruled outside of moral theory. Consequentialism was a moral philosophy of decision-making, after all. Every leader knew how to rule based on consequentalism so, whether or not it was childish petulance or indignity, he was well within his scope of avarice. Kratos, perhaps, had been the first and only of his closest friends to have succumbed so thoroughly to the principle of consequentialism. Mithos could recollect any given altercation involving Kratos and know that Anna fueled Kratos; that Lloyd fueled Kratos; that TERROR fueled Kratos; humanity; consequentialism. Whatever substitution, Kratos was brought to his knees in a pinion of good versus weakness. Mithos despised this about Kratos. All told, it made him sick; that his friend had the indecency to puppet himself if it meant defending a lost cause. Inevitably, Kratos lost all will, and the only way to compensate for the constant friction of capacity against TERROR was for him to turn to apathy, and if that's how Kratos held himself together, then so be it.

The problem with consequentialism was that if a person had nothing to lose then terror had no place. Lloyd, for example, had begun to doubt Mithos. His slant on things was shifting because, indubitably, Mithos Yggdrasill had _not _harmed him. Consequentialism did not apply here where there were no consequences of Lloyd's perpetual contention. Mithos hadn't touched him. Mithos hadn't _punished _him. Mithos couldn't remember the last time he had been disobeyed – it must have been before the Kharlan War, back when he was nothing. Lloyd possessed the manifold of qualities that Mithos once saw in the boy's father, only now it placed them in a cul-de-sac of optimism versus patronization

Like now, where Lloyd stood. The boy hung back a little, mindful of the fact that he was under attack no matter which way he looked at it, but Mithos didn't _do _anything.

"Lloyd, why do you want to stay here?"

"I don't." The boy fidgeted, looking up at the disc-shaped spacers fixed in the ceiling. They radiated a fluorescent, clinical light upon him, making this feel all the more like an interrogation room. He'd almost added, 'I hate it here,' but he preferred to show neither weakness nor preference in the company of Mithos.

"I would personally deliver you to Sylvarant. You understand that your freedom could be appropriated."

Lloyd angled brown-set eyes upon him, eyes that harbored tempestuous sentiments. "I'm not giving you my Exsphere."

But Mithos didn't sigh. Mithos didn't rage. Mithos' only delivery was a cathartic stare at Lloyd – and perhaps an innocuous kind of disappointment. In fact, it was several beats before Mithos responded at all. "Tell me why."

Fatigue was a bone-deep ache in Lloyd, not from nights of poor sleep but from the certainty that Mithos was ready to go another round of tall requests and oblique points of view. It was tiresome, arguing with Mithos. It wore Lloyd down. But he challenged it with everything he had. "Because."

"That is not an answer."

Lloyd turned up his chin. "Because you already know the answer."

"I can appreciate the vanity of what it is you think that you're doing," the leader of Seraphs conceded with a trace iota of sensitivity. It could have been fake, for all Lloyd cared. He never even bothered to overanalyze Mithos. There was absolutely nothing there; no sympathy, no semblant mutuality. He was almost as empty as his angels except that he had a mind for trickery. "But I don't have forever."

But he didn't touch Lloyd. He didn't coax him through the criminal promises of his manipulations. If there was ever any autonomy given, it was always at a high price – and it might have been complete autonomy, the way that Mithos put everything to him, yet Lloyd wasn't willing to part with his Exsphere.

And, somehow, that was tolerated.

"I'm not going to change my mind."

Mithos probed the boy in front of him with eyes like pastel light. "Don't spurn me, boy. I am your provider."

A slight jerk of his head and Lloyd was shooting a nasty look at the wall instead of at Mithos. "I'm not spurning you."

"You are, and you do it so utterly."

"If you let me go, you could spare your hospitalities for—"

"Who are you hoping to appease, me or yourself?"

"I'm just saying—"

"Then be silent." Mithos was all at once cruel, in the particular fashion of his mood swings, and removed Lloyd from all sight by turning around and walking away from him.

Lloyd clamped down on all impulse and back-talk, but it was by the strain of his two clenched fists. By no means was his obedience an easy submission. In fact, it felt worse each time he had to curb himself to the gutter to accommodate Mithos. There was a temper in him, growing over time. Like an alive thing, it burned against Mithos, and Lloyd didn't know how to sate it, but he knew that he couldn't risk slipping up now. He wanted to take aim. Knowing that he couldn't afforded him no peace, just an unfulfilled anger and, as a more recent development, bad moods – of which Yuan took the brunt. Sometimes Lloyd didn't think that he'd be able to control it, the way that Mithos heckled him. Sometimes he simply couldn't fathom how he always managed to somehow contain himself. It all really made him want to just—

"Get off me," Lloyd snapped at the Desian. He hadn't even heard Mithos' dismissal, which is why the guards were approaching. Without another word, he took off into the hall before he could further misdirect his anger. His strides were long and deliberate, as if each footstep was charged with the same kind of energy that was discernible in his eyes, and if anyone dared remark to him at that moment how much like Kratos he resembled he would probably lose the leash on his temper the rest of the way.

He didn't slow down until he had cleared the other end of the hall. It was there that his body relaxed into a stroll, and that curdling in his stomach, that sick feeling of turbulence, died down a little. Really, he didn't know how to help himself. He didn't _like _that Mithos could get him so mad without lifting a finger, but he didn't know what to do about it. This recurrent nightmare played out twice a day, whenever Mithos summoned him, and by the time Lloyd could get away from him, his temper always decided on settling down into a tired, black mood.

He was drained by the time he reached his chambers.

But he was still a little dumbfounded when he found Kratos within, sitting just askance bedside with something indistinguishable in his hands that he was staring at. He looked up just as Lloyd entered.

"Oh—" Lloyd came to a full halt. Clearly this had not been written into the preface to his day.

Kratos rose to his feet before Lloyd could even think up something to say to him. He, too, generally didn't plan family into his days here at Centrum. Lloyd usually left Kratos' quarters well enough alone during the day if he had the option of Yuan's company. Neither of them had expected to bump into one another here.

It was like running into a brick wall. Each and every time. To Lloyd, crossing paths with Kratos these days always felt more like he was _clashing ways_ with Kratos. The son tried to imagine that this feeling wasn't something new and that he had felt this way about Kratos even during the Journey of World Regeneration – he recalled, to an extent, that he had – but back then it was rigidly blamed on his helplessness. Only now Lloyd didn't exactly feel helpless around Kratos, but he didn't feel very helpful to Kratos either – so, really, he knew he was just getting in the way. Lloyd was a free prisoner, and Kratos, some sort of master slave, and these roles created less reasons for them to bump into each other anymore in Centrum because each of them had it in his power to make it that way for the other. But when they did, Kratos' eyes shed a specific glance, and time felt like a warped kind of yesterday, and Lloyd knew that he had encroached without a means to back-pedal the damage.

"I'm sorry," broke in Kratos through Lloyd's surprise.

And Lloyd thought it awful of him that Kratos was apologizing for it.

"Nah." He found his voice earnest even to his ears. "Don't be. It's your place anyway. You only lent it to me."

For a second, it was like looking in the mirror when eyes met identical eyes.

Then Lloyd, suddenly uncomfortable, lowered his gaze somewhere between the wall and the floor. "I'm just grabbing something, then I'll be out of your way."

"I only came for this," Kratos indicated the tome-like object he was holding. "Don't rush out on my account."

"No, I—" the Aurion son began to say as he rummaged beside the bed, using truths as excuses to carry him far away from his father's business. "I was heading to Yuan's to return something of his, so—" Lloyd all but disappeared behind the bed as he ducked so that nothing but his hair showed while his hands scrambled around. "I wasn't planning on staying anyway. You've got your place to yourself," declared the boy, graciously, as he finally stood again.

Mute to further argument, Kratos stared at the cloth bunched in Lloyd's hands. "Yuan's?"

"His shirt," Lloyd confirmed as he let the wrinkled fabric hang loose from his fingers, looking rather forlornly at it.

"I was not aware... but of course you would..." And Kratos seemed to be talking to himself.

And then: "I will see to it that you are supplied a suitable wardrobe."

Lloyd's eyes widened. "Oh, no, that's alright," he rallied his protests around himself like an invisible shield. After all, before debt came burden. Taking favors from Kratos was far worse than taking candy from a baby. In no way, shape, or form did Lloyd want to become his father's hindrance – especially since he was blood. If Kratos was anything like Yuan, he would appreciate that strange type of prudence coming from Lloyd. "Don't bother. Yuan sees to it that I have things to wear. Although," Lloyd glanced sheepishly down at the shirt he held. "Although he shouldn't have lent me this. I said no but he told me to wear it anyway, and now it's ripped."

He turned the shirt around so that the back was on display. It was torn just under the right arm. "This felt too small around my shoulders. I don't know how it isn't too tight for him."

**It is because you are built like me.** Kratos nearly spoke aloud.** You are like me, not like him. You are my son.**

But instead: "Any things of mine, you could have worn."

Lloyd lost so much color in his face that it was hard for Kratos to pretend not to notice.

"I would never wear your things – it's perfectly alright!"

That coming from a charity case. Of course, Lloyd hadn't meant for that to sound quite as pointed as it did. But Kratos duly noted his haste to decline. Lloyd looked ready to pass out in mortification, the color around his pupils suddenly thin like the grain of bleached cedar wood set in a weak expression. It was because it was at cost of Kratos. It was because it was Cruxis garb. It was because it was _his_ _father's clothes_ and didn't he have the right to his own identity for a little while longer, at least? Could he imagine himself–

"Very well." The Seraph brushed his finger against a paper folded between the pages of the book he held, as if marking his place in both document and in family generosity. He would not push it. Instead, he allowed for the sedative transition back into the chance, banal encounter with Lloyd that Lloyd seemed to want all this to be.

Though he could have sworn at one time Lloyd used to want it to be more.

Still, the boy was nothing more than polite. There wasn't anything wrong with courteousness. Kratos couldn't blame Lloyd for developing an identity apart from him. If anything, in the scheme of things, it made things simpler. But even with cold assurances like that one, it didn't do anything for the strange, misplaced sense of exclusion that left him feeling like he was too far out of touch with the boy. Kratos had no doubts that, during the Journey, Lloyd had strived to be like him. The enthusiasm had still been there, when Lloyd was first abducted and forced behind Centrum bars, but now it was almost like it was being funneled through a too-narrow stem, only presenting itself in quick spurts, and only when the pressure was on. After that, whatever leftovers there were of Lloyd's attitude toward him were drained out through either awkwardness toward self or shyness toward Kratos. Or both – Kratos wasn't always sure which it was.

The Seraph was about to act on the silent inclination to head for the door but then the unpredictable shut his every nerve down before he could even look up...

"Don't go."

Those two words spoken from the other side of the bed in that not-tenor-not-baritone voice blasted through Kratos' expectations and half-hearted assurances like a breath of warmth into a faulty ice sculpture. It both demolished and detained him, for he wasn't quite sure that he understood that he'd heard what he thought he did, but if he did then that would very nearly be the end of a huge part of him.

Lloyd stood across from him, facing him with singular purpose. The shirt in his clutch hung forgotten at his side as all of his strength of mind became focused on the Angel in front of him. He lanced Kratos with a suddenly unwieldy stare that didn't pass all the way through him but instead conformed to exactly who he was down to the fragments of measure. Lloyd stood tall in front of Kratos and straight in front of Kratos, and Kratos briefly lost track of the fact that Lloyd was supposed to be a teenager still.

"–That is... you shouldn't go." The tone crumbled a little because by no means was Lloyd an uppity thing... but at times the fire burned blue, suffocated by his soft-hearted ideals and spirit, and he wanted to restore to honor that which was twisted. And because Kratos knew his pure intentions, his wholesome logic and goodness, and that his wounded soul couldn't fully swallow _why_ it had to be this way, he couldn't be angry with him for slipping up and trying. As a matter of fact, it was a little surprising that this conversation hadn't taken place sooner. Then again, Kratos supposed that he hadn't allowed it the chance.

But it was glaringly obvious that Lloyd was talking about Kratos' impending departure for Derris-Kharlan. He'd been clued in by Yuan how long this latest venture was scheduled to take. Kratos would be gone for a long, long time.

They shared an uneven silence for a time. Lloyd couldn't keep his eyes off him, and Kratos couldn't help but keep his eyes on Lloyd, even if he didn't want to, and he could tell by cunning sorrel glints that Lloyd was working out something in his head.

"I have to go," Kratos finally responded.

Lloyd instantly shrugged, as if he had been waiting on cue for that answer. He was already embarrassed at his latest outburst of emotions. Yet he continued to play for his goal, this time in a more offhanded way. "Let someone else do it."

"No one else can do it. It has to be me."

"But Kratos..." Really, he couldn't say that rejection was all that much of a shock. "It's insane. It's crazy and stupid and dangerous. Everyone knows it."

"Yuan told you of the plan, then."

"Who else? You don't need to do this for Yggdrasill." Lloyd balled his hand with the crumpled shirt and dropped his fist into his other hand, as if for emphasis. "Every person has the right to live for himself."

"Can you really say that, after all you've been through here?"

"Yes. I can. And I'm going to."

"Lloyd, I know what you're planning to do." And against all of Yuan's warnings not to bring it up, Kratos soldiered heart-first into the war anyway. "Please, don't do it. Any attempt at escape could mean your life."

He was instantly met by Lloyd's frown – no, not a frown. A scowl. "I know what I'm doing."

"You don't know him, what he's capable of. You'd be foolish to try."

"It's none of your business," Lloyd retorted.

"It _is_ my business. You–"

"I'm not as helpless as you think!" rounded Lloyd, suddenly all mistemper again. "I'm not as weak as I used to be!"

"You aren't–"

"I'm not the same kid as I was back then, Kratos – give me at least a little credit for that!"

The Seraph slipped on an expressionless face, counterposed only by his eyes that bled relinquishment, as if he were telling himself one thing and enduring something altogether different.

"Believe you me, I know that. Just don't do anything stupid."

Lloyd positively glared, although he was doing so at the bed between them. Kratos took in the image of his son, could almost feel the self-righteous anger rushing out of Lloyd to target him and anything around him. Maybe Yuan was right about this conversation being a bad one to bring up, but at least Kratos could say that he tried. For once.

"Don't die, Lloyd."

Lloyd's head snapped up at that. The patience that he found in the Seraph's eyes worked a tenacious regret into him. He didn't even know why.

The boy sank onto the bed as his father walked out of the room.

* * *

He understood. He understood what Lloyd had been trying to do. Lloyd had been reaching out to him, bestowing upon him the blessing of second chances - or third, or fourth, whatever it would've been. It had burst forth from him, like a flooded-over well of beautiful ambition. And Kratos had squandered it, just like the first or second or however many that had come before it. But there wasn't anything that he could have done instead. Their lives were linked to Cruxis, soul and spirit. For Lloyd, it would last until he gave up his Exsphere to Mithos. For Kratos, it would last until Mithos gave up Lloyd to Sylvarant.

His mind was fogged over with a stretched-out concern for his son, and a chill launched its feeble internal course through his zones of flattery, vanity, and what-could-be. It was loveliness and dread supreme. After all, Lloyd _did _care, otherwise not a protest would he have uttered in the vein of Derris-Kharlan and his absence.

"I told you not to say anything to him." Yuan's voice was a harsh interruption to his musings.

"It's better for him that I go," Kratos urged. With some prompting, Yuan had gotten him to spill the story of his latest conversation with Lloyd. It had vexed Kratos, shoved him just over the line of ruffled, but – if anything – it strengthened his resolve to leave things behind in the name of Derris-Kharlan.

"It's better for him that you stay," corrected Yuan, though not expecting to be heeded, for sometimes Kratos' castaneous eyes did not shine at all with the light of being, like at this moment, and his friend could no more control his own destiny than he could empathize with the human heart of one solitary boy.

Kratos threw his heavy stare into Yuan, as if trying to see through him. "We will not have this argument again." It was the same discussion every single time Kratos had to leave Centrum. Kratos _would_ leave again, and Lloyd _would_ remain at Centrum, left well enough alone. That would be that. There would be no more talk of daring escapes or spontaneous rebellion, as if he would cohort with his son to flee under Lord Yggdrasill's eye.

"Why are you waiting until something happens?"

Kratos stood to his feet, overriding what he perceived was only more of Yuan's pessimism.

"Keep him from escaping."

"Now you're trying to imprison him, too?"

"Yuan, you know that's not what this is."

And Yuan set his jaw. His face looked jaundiced in what little of Centrum's unholy light echoed down this hallway. "How would you plan that I keep him from escaping when _his_ plan is to escape during my absence?" He kept the sarcasm in his tone carefully filtered, which was a praiseworthy thing for him to do in front of an Aurion who had been backed into a corner by his own hypocrisy.

The sickly lighting cast Kratos' face, too, into a laurel gray as he turned his head. He sought for an answer while choked by all of this web created by his own leniency and fear. Yuan had brought him full circle. The only thing left to ask was for Yuan's promise not to leave Centrum – which was the only thing that he _couldn't_ ask because it was precisely what Yuan _dared_ him to ask. **Hypocrite**.

_ It's better for him that you stay._

Why did it feel like everything was running out of his control? He had a job to do, and that should have given him some focus. Missions usually brought with them a little clarity of mind. He was still dead set on leaving – there wasn't a doubt in his mind that it's what he had to do – but he was more than the slightest bit disturbed by Lloyd's reaction. He had to be; he was a father.

"I'm going to run over the briefs again," Kratos stated, blankly. He didn't need to. Yuan knew that. Every part that Kratos had to play had long since been memorized. But he craved to distance himself from this irking feeling, and so off he went to do just that, leaving Yuan abandoned on his soapbox without a willing audience.

Not that Kratos had ever been willing to listen to him.

* * *

Shaking his head as if to rid himself of all the damns that he gave, Yuan roamed back in the direction of Centrum's residential zone. Along the way, he thanked the Light – and all of Its Wonders – for his wisdom in having no children. He prided himself on not even being close to making the same mistakes that Kratos had. There was no place in this world for children. Children were nothing but pains and maladies and breakdowns waiting to happen. They were needy, costly, tactless, and indecisive. In other words, they were everything that Yuan was not. And they were stupid.

Yuan circled the corner to find Lloyd sitting against the wall just outside of Kratos' – _his_ – quarters. His elbows hung over his bent knees, and his eyes gazed straight ahead at the hall entrance, seeming like he didn't want to be in there but didn't want to leave the place either. He actually looked to be deep in thought, so it surprised Yuan just a little when Lloyd spoke to him without ever checking that he was there.

"You knew I was planning to leave. And you told him."

Whatever Kratos knew, Yuan had to know too. It was the way it worked, not just because they were Seraphim but because they were Kratos and Yuan. Lloyd was somehow aware of this symbiosis when it came to a certain array of topics. He wasn't stupid the way "other children" were stupid, Yuan knew.

Teal locks and hard boots came to a halt, and shrewd eyes studied the loose posture and contemplative brow that Lloyd bore. Yuan noticed something in his hands – a balled-up shirt? – but didn't question it. Instead he addressed the accusation at hand.

"I knew from the beginning what you were plotting. But, I swear to you, I said nothing to Kratos. He learned it on his own."

Lloyd lifted those suddenly reflective brown eyes to Yuan. "If you both knew, then how come he tried to stop me and you never have?"

The Seraph looked in either direction of the hall. Satisfied that they were well and truly alone, he lowered himself to sit at Lloyd's level against the wall. The length of navy cloak was pitched unconcernedly around his frame. This triggered flashes of memory in Lloyd's head, memories of Yuan's nocturnal visits to him, of a Seraph sitting just outside the bars like a shadowy blot separating him from the rest of Centrum. At the moment, Lloyd could not smile at this memory.

"You already know how dangerous it is. That's why I've never spoken out against it. Danger has never stopped you from doing what is right, not in all your life."

It was a very poetic, very complimentary thing for Yuan to say to anyone, much less Lloyd, yet it seemed to sail right over Lloyd's head.

"Is this right?" The boy looked like he was imploring his hands for the answer, as his eyes had roved back down in pause.

"You will know."

Another brief pause.

"And Kratos?"

"He's your father. He thought he had to say something." Yuan was the last person who deserved to save face for hard-headed Kratos, especially when it came to defending him in front of his son. Yet, dutifully, Yuan did so regardless. He was a rare friend indeed. Kratos counted on him to be. "He's terrified for you."

"Kratos has never been terrified in his life. Sorry, but I just don't see it."

They went quiet again. Yuan sat perfectly at ease. He was watching as Lloyd was stretching out a hole in a shirt that he was almost positive he had given him. And Lloyd, it was clear, had slipped back behind his thoughts, not even paying attention to the ruin that he was creating with his hands. His Exsphere rotated rhythmically back and forth, back and forth, with the movement of his hand as he picked at the hole in the shirt. Most of the time, the Exsphere was covered by a glove. Lloyd was careful not to show it in public, though even the least of Desians seemed to be in possession of one.

"I almost asked to go with him to Derris-Kharlan. Almost."

Yuan was surprised a little bit more as Lloyd revealed this new information to him. He could think of nobody in his right mind who would want to be stuck with Kratos for that long, Derris-Kharlan or no Derris-Kharlan – and the way that Kratos treated Lloyd, it was difficult to imagine that Lloyd would _still_ willingly set himself up for something like that.

"He would have told you no."

"I know that. I know." Lloyd hesitated before his next words, somehow both ashamed and relieved that they were finding their way out of him. "But I couldn't ask anyway. Something held me back."

Yuan silently bid him go on.

"See, if I went to Derris-Kharlan with him, I'd kiss my freedom goodbye. And my friends... I'd never see them again." Lloyd wrung the shirt as though it were laundry needing to be dried. He looked nervous, more than anything; tortuously, painstakingly confused. "I couldn't do that. I just couldn't give it all up for family." At last he looked over to Yuan. "I knew that I couldn't. But isn't that wrong? Isn't that what he would do?"

Yuan wasn't sure what Lloyd was asking him. At first it sounded like he was asking if Kratos would give it all up for family; however, in context, it could've been that he was asking if Kratos _wouldn't_ give it all up for family, much the same way that Lloyd wouldn't. It could be that he wasn't expected to answer at all because Lloyd carried on without his input.

"I want my freedom more than I want my dad. It's hard for me to know that I'm... that kind of person."

Yuan casually plucked the shirt from Lloyd's antsy grip, leaving Lloyd with nothing to fidget away his worries. "He would have done it for you if you hadn't done it for yourself. He would have said no. Kratos would never agree to take you to Derris-Kharlan with him."

"Then, if he chooses my freedom, why doesn't he want me to escape?" Lloyd flexed his now empty hands and opened them to nothing. "He doesn't make sense."

"You have to stop asking yourself these questions, Lloyd." It was a lame thing to say, hardy passing as even an excuse, but Yuan knew that there was nothing he could offer the boy – not on these grounds, not this time.

"I can't... They never stop."

Yes, Lloyd was oftentimes an exception to "other kids." He wasn't tactless and indecisive and stupid. He was _exceptionally_ not these things. He had a plan and a decision, and a brain for both. His fault, Yuan had decided some time ago, was his obsession over his father. The heart was the one flaw that destroyed a man. It was also the single best catalyst for victory. It was no wonder that Lloyd was confused by Kratos jerking him around the way that he did. Yet, somehow in Lloyd's mind, family was still family – and Kratos should've counted himself lucky that Lloyd always settled for thinking the best of him.

"I hope he's okay up there."

Yuan turned up his head at Lloyd's sudden shift in direction. Like the good kid he was, Lloyd was driving himself back in boundary. He needed only to vent it all out to Yuan, as he always did – preferably without the frantic pacing about in Yuan's apartments – before mentally kicking himself back to where he needed to be. Or where he _thought_ he needed to be, anyway; he was such a good son that, once again, he took the blame that should've been left for Kratos and shouldered it upon himself.

"I hope he gets done fast and comes back down. I mean, he's an Angel of Cruxis. Maybe this'll be a cinch for him."

"You may be right, although I wouldn't get my hopes up were I you," hampered Yuan, hating that he had been unofficially placed in charge of shooting Lloyd back down.

**I wish I could tell you that I'm not happy either about your running away from Centrum,** Yuan wisely did not share his thought aloud. **But I'll do everything in my power to make it work, if you'd trust me with it.**

In the shadow of Yuan's underhearing, he thought he heard Lloyd say, "Every person has the right to live for himself."


	14. Chapter 14

"What was all that about being a swordsman – and not just one, but two blades?" scorned Osha as he lashed out a fast right aimed for Lloyd's shoulder. The Desian was perfectly groomed in two-toned uniform and tailored temperance. His dappled eyes, a tortoiseshell color, witnessed one Lloyd the Prisoner under visible duress. It was late into the night – the kitchens had cooled from their usual choke of boiling air – so there was no excuse for the heat that jumped noticeably to Lloyd's cheeks. By the legitimacy of his taunting, Osha hardly needed to make a move. He wasn't winning this game; he was letting Lloyd lose it.

Lloyd sighed out his disgruntlement – admittedly his pride had taken a huge hit – and failed to avoid the plastic sting against his flesh from Osha's stab. The expression in his eyes withered a little but then re-lit with the soulfire tendency to prevail. Lloyd exploded into action. In a sudden display of nerve, and a hard push ahead, he launched the tip of his scraper at Osha to prove himself once and for all.

Yet his opponent dodged effortlessly and delivered retribution via the blunt of his weapon.

The thread of conversation continued in the form of Lloyd's excuses. "They took my swords from me before I even woke up."

"You were that dangerous?"

"I am– was." Lloyd shook his head, more out of frustration at himself than at Osha. This was the first time he couldn't hold his own during a spar. He was incredulous at the discovery. He just couldn't believe it. His body didn't move the way he remembered it to, his weapon was a cheap piece of kitchenware, completely alien to a sword, and he couldn't for the life of him recall the way that Desians fought. He was, for some reason that was driving him mad, unfamiliar with Osha's combat style even though it should have been an easy memory to refresh, like riding a Rheiard. For crying out loud, he'd bested more than a handful of Desians in his time – and more than one at once! Brown eyes shook in blazing amber flecks of disbelief. His wayward locks of soft, dark caramel slipped back over his left eye. He automatically tossed them out of the way with a jerk of his head while desperately trying to avoid Osha's flawless executions.

Unfortunately for him, all in vain.

Fortunately for him, Osha had a heart that couldn't help but pang a little.

"I believe your story, Lloyd." Here came unbidden an almost apologetic, pitying sound in his voice, as if he didn't want to bring this up but knew that Lloyd had to face the very apparent truth about his skill level. "But it means you've gotten sloppy."

"I don't get to practice like you do," growled Lloyd as he rolled up the sleeves of his arms, presumably so that the loose length of tarlatan fabric stopped flouncing over his wrists and getting in his way. "This is the first time I've done something like... this... since I've lived here. Of course I'm sloppy."

"And slow."

"I'm not slow."

This he didn't want to own up to. But Osha pantomimed slitting Lloyd's throat with the cutlery weapon. He made sure to exaggerate the movement to show how very easily it could be accomplished.

"Quit it, Osha."

"Make me quit it."

"I might. I'm bigger than you. You shouldn't pick fights with someone bigger than you."

Osha exhaled something between a cackle and a snort, and nearly choked on his own spit in doing so. Then he came at Lloyd again, fearlessly, with nothing more than sly grin, rubber palette, and his unscrupulous methods of bullying.

"You may be bigger than me," and it was true, as Lloyd's height had overtaken Osha's and peaked Lloyd with a generous two or three -inch advantage – four, with his boots. And Lloyd always wore his boots. Osha wasn't very tall to begin with. "But I'm faster than you." Mercilessly, the older of the pair lanced out and overthrew Lloyd's hand for the third time in that bout.

"This is much smaller than what I'm used to," Lloyd complained of his fake weapon.

"For me, too."

Lloyd growled again, a rumbled warning in his throat, and Osha displayed another impish smile, the kind that painfully reminded Lloyd of Genis up until he mentally slammed the doors shut on the past. Genis would have swooned at the comparison.

Teasing like Genis but reminiscent of Kratos in momentum, Osha was not any fun for Lloyd – especially not when Lloyd was having more difficulty than he should have with controlling his own body. Kratos had always been a crushing drive in their spars of yesteryear; his demands had been overbearing; his attitude, stiff; his reactions, unconditional and psychologically debilitating. Even Kratos used to imply that Lloyd's pace was glacial, but now Lloyd had to hear it all over again – and from somebody thousands of years younger.

"Don't be so touchy," joked Osha, yet he rested his arm at his side to give Lloyd a break. He only had to glance up into his partner's eyes to know that Lloyd was bothered by all this. Excited, but bothered. Of course, Lloyd didn't know how much intensity there was in his bearing right then, but it was enough for Osha to call a time-out.

Lloyd dropped his "weapon" into the sink with a clang. The two of them were alone in the back kitchen, sparring with the longest utensils they could find. Lloyd had used a metal spatula about a foot long. Osha, who had gotten more hits in, resorted to rubber or plastic serving spoons – otherwise Lloyd would be all welts tomorrow. He might still be, with how out of practice he was. This was practically a reliving of his piss-poor spars during the Journey with Kratos trying to teach him, and how mad he used to be at Kratos, and the foul reconstruction of Kratos' snooty, autocratic behavior from a child's viewpoint, and the way that Lloyd could never land a blow even when he did as he was told. Tonight was just as impossible as then. Lloyd was helpless in his strength.

Both he and Osha would be in a lot of trouble if they were caught, but tonight was a good night to take that chance.

Osha spoke up, flippant to the end. "But you're having a good time, right?"

"Yeah." For, indeed, it did feel good to be able to train again. "When I'm not tripping over my own legs."

That was all the affirmation that Osha needed. "Good."

Lloyd leaned his waist against the sink, suddenly more serious than he'd already been all night. The light of his eyes clouded over when he brooded. Osha hadn't seen him smile a single time that day. But, then again, Lloyd didn't seem to smile as much as he used to anyway.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're not okay?" Osha asked. And it was a dangerous question to ask without providing the means to an out for his younger friend. He wasn't supposed to ask that type of question. As close as the two of them were, they weren't involved. They were _strictly_ not involved. Lloyd probably hadn't given away a single credible fact about himself to Osha in all the time that he'd known him. They only ever dwelt in the present. Lloyd had always kept it that way. Lloyd _needed_ it to be that way. Even mentioning dual-sword combat was an earful to Osha.

That wasn't to say that they their friendship was superficial. His connection to Osha was real. Lloyd genuinely preserved every shared deed and conversation, laying down a foundation for them to mark a starting point. The weird thing about it was that the starting point was marked somewhere higher than at ground floor – so to speak. Their friendship was poised somewhere beyond truths and secrets, somewhere out there where lies were necessity and that was okay, and where Lloyd didn't have to explain the stepping stones of his personality. Lloyd was just Lloyd. His personality was just _there_, and nevermind how it got there or who his parents were or why he used to be good at swords or how long he was going to live in Centrum. Osha and Lloyd started in the present and would end in the present. There was no history behind them to spell out what was between them. They were brothers.

"I'm fine." Lloyd tossed another spatula into the sink before finally admitting to the reason behind his distraction. "Just I'm really going to miss you, ya know?"

It was brotherly sympathy that made Osha understand. And also brotherly sympathy that made him act like it wasn't important. "I'll just be a bridge away. And maybe a few forests and a boat ride away, too. But one– two continents _tops_."

Lloyd still didn't smile.

Osha nudged him with his spatula. "C'mon, it's not _that_ boring here. Maybe I'll bring you back a souvenir. I should be home for Holiday."

"That would more than make up for it," ceded Lloyd.

The reality was this would be Osha's last night in Centrum for a long time to come. They had taken over the kitchen to throw a going-away party, which was really only comprised of goofing off while being as quiet as they could, and if Cook knew anything about it he hadn't spoiled the celebration. At dawn, Osha was going to be shipped out on assignment, the type of assignment that involved a lot of Desians in a little time – that's all he could tell Lloyd about it – and it would involve crossing the strait and not re-crossing it for months.

What Osha didn't know was that Lloyd had been waiting for this day to come with bittersweet ambition. This would be the last time that he ever saw Osha, if he had his way. When Osha finally returned to Centrum, Lloyd would be long gone. Truthfully, Lloyd didn't think he would ever see the Desian again. Brothers though they be, they fought for different sides. How little Osha actually knew on his last night with Lloyd.

Lloyd liked Osha. He did from the very first moment of cocksure boldness and finger-pointing antagonism, way back when in the kitchens. Osha's proclivity for competition was not unlike Lloyd's own – which is why tonight's particular whipping stung Lloyd something bitter. Osha wasn't Genis. Osha could be boyishly hectic for his age, whereas Genis always tried to act older than he was. Osha had a lead foot when it came to treading over delicate speculation and ice-thin politics (maybe that's how Lloyd got info out of him) though he'd survived, many a-time, the perils of both. It almost seemed like destruction had no belly for him and would spit him out alive, in a fluke streak of luck, for his entire military life. Lloyd wouldn't call him happy-go-lucky – Osha had his grit – but, rather, well-tested and sound of mind, as only someone homegrown in hardship could be. Osha, like Yuan, had always been a constant in Lloyd's Centrum life – moreso than Kratos had ever been. It didn't matter that Osha got shipped out more than both Seraphim combined. It wasn't his presence but his personality that was a constant. And he wasn't all action, either. Despite joviality, he was adult in both discipline and work, and had a sense of heart-to-heart devotion to Lloyd even though Lloyd couldn't – wouldn't – open up to him. He looked out for Lloyd. Which was probably why Lloyd knew that he would remember Osha for the rest of his life.

The boy Aurion had always been relentless when it came to his friends. Friends came first. Osha was an experiment in exception, to a degree. Lloyd could thank whatever coldness in his heart responsible for detaching Osha from his life story because this would bite a whole lot more if he had treated Osha the same way he had treated any of his other friends. Oh, that sensitivity would always be a part of him, chafed heart and comradely regard and all, but he knew from the beginning that he had made the right choice in walking away from anything closer. He had stuck his friends from home on a pedestal and made damn sure that Osha could never climb as high or jump so far as to mix himself up in this mess. Lloyd would not lose someone to be used against him, whether psychologically or physically. It wasn't too late to get out of here.

Truthfully, it was nearly the right time. When the future delivered Osha back to Centrum, Lloyd would be a thing of the past. And, reluctantly, Lloyd came to accept that he would never see him again. It was hard to believe that this was where their friendship came to a close – harder still because Osha hadn't a clue. The morning would come, tide and shine, and carry Osha away from Centrum, and then all manner of plans would be propelled into forward motion. Lloyd wouldn't be able to stop what was to come. No, once the plan was in full swing, it was jump or drown with the ship; sink or swim. It gave him a rather chilling feeling, as it would for any man when he knew that he was a mere inch off from being swept up into the arms of Destiny and there was nothing he could do to slow Her down. It was also invigorating, all-encompassing, like the urge to leap forward when one was forced to tiptoe. It was like a tickle in his brain. He wanted it to be gotten over with even before it began, just because it was this big, scary, frightening, wonderful thing. Lloyd couldn't, in his wildest dreams, imagine being out of Centrum anymore. He lacked the imagination, he supposed. He'd forgotten what real wind felt like and how bright the sun was at high noon and what grass smelled like and how a woodchuck sounded in the middle of Iselia's woods–

"That's about time. You're overdue for that."

Lloyd blinked, snapped back from his reverie. "What?"

"You're smiling," Osha pointed out. "Like a big, dumb, happy idiot. What're you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"I don't believe that. But suit yourself."

Lloyd ran a hand through his stubborn, mussy hair as his smile slowly lost its innocence. Yes, how very little Osha actually knew during his last night with Lloyd. And how sick Lloyd felt, even while he knowingly struggled to lock himself behind his papery smile and the greatest wall of apathy that he had ever before created between a friend and himself.

* * *

It showed a little. Upon entering Yuan's quarters the next morning, Lloyd leaned his back heavily against the door and just settled there for a few moments in a lousy, sagging posture of self-inflicted embitterment. Today was the day of Osha's farewell. Sleeplessness had followed Lloyd like a bad dream, untuning stamina and the fine tethers of control – because, despite all his efforts to keep Osha as an arm's length friend, this misery still wasn't prevented in the end. It was inevitable. But it was morning now and time to cover his tracks. Irises of dark butterscotch followed the Seraph of Cruxis as Lloyd traded black, tumultuous emotion for the sight of everyday Yuan.

"You're here early," remarked Yuan, breviloquent as usual. With his normal placidity of ease, he shifted across the room and lifted a vellum-bound document from his oversized desk. His topcoat of brown wool construction, impeccably buttoned all the way up its high neck, gave Lloyd the impression that Yuan was going outside Centrum today. He wouldn't have been able to explain how he knew, but he knew. Yuan always looked well-presented – it was his modus operandi. But Lloyd could spot the red edging of a uniform sleeve as Yuan moved his arm, and that made him fairly certain that his first impression was the right one. Yuan lived his life in patterns that most people couldn't get close enough to read, but Lloyd had memorized a few.

"You're not going with them..." speculated Lloyd in slow wonder, keen eyes making a note of that flash of red – because, if Yuan were leaving Centrum, Lloyd would be more than just a little extremely interested.

"I didn't say I was."

"I meant it as a question."

"Then say what you mean to say, Lloyd," resolved Yuan, with starched attitude and inflectionless timbre.

"Sorry." But Lloyd sounded unremorseful. Yuan's snippety forthcoming had told him most of what he wanted to know. Perhaps it was one of those mornings where a certain thread of a pattern had already been plucked out of sequence and Yuan was in one of his precipitous moods because of it.

He might have not even heard Lloyd's apology.

"Got any breakfast?" It was simple, predictable, and unusually lackluster, and there was really no point in asking because Lloyd knew better than Yuan what food was there.

So Yuan didn't bother answering that either as Lloyd started to dig through the store.

A minute passed by with either of them in total silence.

Then Lloyd opened his mouth to ask a question. "You're not going with them, are you?" Rephrased. Because Yuan always got his way.

"No. I'm sending a Cardinal."

"Which one?"

"Magnius."

"Oh," Lloyd replied, while dexterously stacking various food goods into his arms. Then he muttered under his breath, rhyming loosely, something like, "Magnius the Inebrious."

Yuan's attention transferred to Lloyd. Unfortunately, with it came his directness. "What did you say?"

"Nothing."

Yuan watched the boy closely as he stole his plunder over to the table and spread it out in front of him. Lloyd had an erratic style of energy today in the darkness of his eyes. No, not an energy – quite the opposite, really. More like a restlessness, an itch. He began to prepare a pickle sandwich for himself. Dark circles of exhaustion could be traced against a complexion that looked just a little bloodless this morning; collaborated with that indefinable jittery charge in his eyes. Yuan read Lloyd oftentimes in the same way that he would follow a script. The boy made it very obvious when something was amiss in his strange little world, but the question was always whether or not it was up for discussion.

In silence, and completely unaware that he was being analyzed, Lloyd bit into his double-decker sandwich. The pickles wedged between each of the three slices of bread made a crunching sound as he chewed, even with his mouth closed. The timing of his visit rang another false note in Yuan's ears. Lloyd didn't usually visit until after his first summons of the day, and he normally breakfasted in the main kitchens.

"Where did you hear that?" persisted Yuan.

"Where do you think? The dining hall."

"From whom?"

"It'd be impossible to pick just one name, Yuan." And he made it out to be a vapid observation at even the most moronic level of comprehension, as if some things were just too obvious to point out. Ironically enough, he sounded a lot like Yuan.

Yuan watched as Lloyd began slicing into a fresh, whole wheel of cheese, still working on devouring his sandwich in record time. That was another crazy thing about the boy. Yuan had never met a human being that could pack away as much food as Lloyd Irving could. Granted, he didn't have much experience with teenagers, but it was almost with a sick fascination that he wondered where all of it went because Lloyd never grew sideways. He only grew up. His shoulders had been the only exception to this phenomenon since very early on. They were the only part of his body that ever grew horizontally, as if all extraneous protein went straight to the bulk of his shoulders. But, that aside, his appetite only made him grow taller instead of wider. _How_ would forever be a metabolic mystery.

"You don't have a choice, so quit thinking about it," Lloyd piped up quite out of the blue.

Orbs of celadon, glossy like minerals in springwater, blinked surprise in the pretext to amusement. "Pray tell, what am I thinking about?" This would be good. Lloyd had his attention, at least – and only the residual aloofness of his mood, now.

"You're thinking that it's a bad idea to send out a Cardinal with Desians that don't respect him, even though it's alright if _you_ don't."

The Seraph gave considerate pause, locking in his silence with his scrutiny.

"But you can't go, and you know you can't send Pronyma. So, like I said, you don't have a choice. So quit thinking about it."

Goodness, but he couldn't figure out what was _wrong_ with the boy today – and why it had suddenly made him perceptive. For truth, that dilemma exactly was one that had been on Yuan's mind when Lloyd so adorably – and so coincidentally – parodied Magnius' name into the fridge. All told, it didn't seat well with diplomacy, and it certainly threw a wrench in patching together a patrol unit under the half-elf. What Lloyd was insinuating, after all, is that this little joke was being dauntlessly thrown around Centrum among the Desians and that Magnius commanded virtually no respect.

With his sandwich polished off, and a section of cheese still in his mouth, Lloyd headed straight to the cooler unit again to rummage some more. "I want meat," he declared, so casually withdrawing from the "Inebrious Magnius" topic as if he hadn't just effortlessly trespassed into Yuan's state of affairs and summarized it perfectly.

Yuan was still curiously taken aback by Lloyd's tactfulness, unpolished though it was. "Go to the kitchens," he managed. Dead animal, Lloyd's usual craving, would be cooking there in bulk this morning. The place was guaranteed to be in full swing.

"Not now. You know it's packed there already." The excuse was delivered quickly, for he refused to run the risk of seeing Osha. "It's been wall-to-wall with Desians since dawn." Lloyd returned to the table and started spreading peanut butter on apple slices, popping them into his mouth one at a time as they were fixed. "Since _before_ dawn," he corrected himself. "And I didn't sleep a wink last night, so I had time to check."

Ah. There it was. The missing link to Lloyd's frantic agitation and what could only be the real story behind his eccentricity of the day: He was running on no sleep, and tensed – and the reason for both, Yuan deduced, was because his mole-friend must be one of the Desians that was being shipped out this morning. He'd bet his own Crystal that was it. Yuan still didn't have a name, but that hardly mattered. What mattered was that one Desian among the masses departing was "the friend," and Lloyd was avoiding it. Yuan could sympathize that Lloyd wouldn't want to say goodbye to another friend, for the bad memories that would stir up, yet it still wasn't like him to shirk courtesy and give up so completely on a person.

Unless, of course, he didn't plan on seeing the Desian ever again.

He was avoiding the kitchens altogether, hiding out in Yuan's quarters with a half-wandered mind and a scrabbled sense of acceptance. But Osha's leave denoted so much more than the mere loss of friendship. It meant one down, two to go. All that was left for Lloyd to kickstart his plan of escape was for Kratos and Yuan to leave Centrum next. Kratos was easy. He _wanted_ to leave Centrum, and was about to. Yuan was the one that Lloyd couldn't always be sure about.

And what should've been obvious to Yuan before but was only coming to him now, he realized – as he watched Lloyd swallow down another apple slice – was that Lloyd always ate more when he was grumpy. He required the excess fuel to make up for lack of sleep and to wake his body to the simplest of low-energy, commonplace tasks. Especially when he was torn two ways like this.

As if on cue, Lloyd droned in confirmation, "I'm so tired," and Yuan could see the way his eyelids were at half mast while he cleaned up after himself. Another remarkable thing: Lloyd never left a mess when he ate. Probably because there wasn't anything left by the time he was finished.

"I believe it's called a food coma, Lloyd."

Lloyd waved his hand dismissively at Yuan's gibe while he took up his favorite spot on the settee, at first curling his knees and resting his feet on the armrest but soon stretching out in typical fashion. His legs wrapped over the armrest, hanging low and dangling above the floor. He relaxed his head atop the opposite armrest that always served as his pillow.

He was finished going round-robin like a loon over the concept of Osha. In one night of weakness – or the search for absolute, inhuman control – Lloyd had pleaded apostasy. Grief, with its incapacitating, heart-sinking loss of self direction, had heaved its weight against him all night long, sparing him no peace during the hours preceding daybreak... because he considered friendship an eternal pact, and he begged himself not to, please, just this once, just long enough to forget about Osha until a time when detachment would no longer be a thing of feeling. A Lifeless Being, although not a popular idea, would be the right brand of emptiness for him to go through with losing Osha. Something enraged and alive inside Lloyd blamed Yggdrasill for all this because – why not? – that monster could take the hit for _everything. _Yet Lloyd knew that was too easy to do. The one crucial, human element that made this anything but Yggdrasill's fault was guilt. Lloyd had built this scenario on purpose. Although in its infancy it could be accredited to it, this wasn't the same thing as Yggdrasill robbing him of the opportunity to say goodbye to his friends on Sylvarant. This was Lloyd choosing to rob _himself_, to desensitize himself to a porcelain heart, to sacrifice a friendship that he had starved from the beginning, one that he had denied life. He wished that he could tell Osha everything about him, really, and trust him with all of it. But he knew that he had to go and that Osha couldn't come with him, and that was precisely the bottom line reason why Lloyd couldn't open up his life to him. He knew how it felt to be time and distance apart from his friends, and he would have to be mad to invite more of the same pain by attaching himself to someone on this world. He'd gone out of his way not to.

In another life, in another situation, they could've been great friends. But not now. He just couldn't. In the long run, doing it this way would hurt him a lot less and give Osha some semblance of protection. **Sometimes there just isn't a better way. Sometimes there is no such thing as a happy ending. **He couldn't believe that, for the first time ever, he was trying to convince himself of that, but he had tried to convince himself of a lot of insane things last night to anesthetize conscience. An irrational, sleep-deprived part of him had even been angry at Osha for not realizing that it was over.

Yuan cleared his throat, well and truly believing that Lloyd had forgotten he was still there.

"Good luck," bid Lloyd, eyes fast closed, intent to sleep away this important morning – right up until the procedural nightmare of Yggdrasill, that is. For the rest of the day, until well after Osha left Centrum, he would be a closed book.

* * *

There was nothing any more transcendental about this morning than any of the other previous mornings, nothing to explain the sudden call to arms and their fortressed emotions or their wickerwork campsite littered with the implications of their preparation. The sky was the white of a sun that couldn't break through the barrier of clouds, try as it might to spigot down and convince them that they were not alone. There was nothing to say about the weather but that it was the boring kind of mild. The only thing that made today any different was that it was a collective calling, a truncheon awakening, and it stretched beyond the limits of Sylvarant.

Genis Sage sat with criss-crossed legs as he dotingly handled his kendama. There was nothing but garden-variety supplies spread around him; a length of string which he would use for the new cord, a jar of linseed oil to reduce wood chipping, a mill knife to re-fashion the spike, a few red sun balls of slightly differing sizes. His weapon required nothing more than this straightforward allowance of tinker's toys and household stock. Don't aim too high to miss, he always said. It was the mana, after all, that did all the work. The kendama was used to focus a bigger weapon, and he didn't need a fancy sword to direct the mana that was already there for the taking. If ever he was elaborate, he would use Gels to dye the wood different colors. But that was for fun, and for this goal he didn't need anything beyond conventional replenishment.

His sister sat not far off to his right, glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose which was stuck in a book. She had no need for weapon implementation. In fact, her weapon outdated any of theirs; an old six-foot quarterstaff made from the hardwood ash tree, bound with iron set with silver rivets. It was a little stouter than most quarterstaffs but was magnificent in its age, never tampered with, for, as Genis knew, it was not the weapon itself but what the weapon channeled.

Add Colette to the list, with her flying chakram rings, and they made a fairly competent, magical team.

Except they were missing Lloyd, the brawn to their brains, with his gung ho, rush-in-hack-and-slash element of fighting that kept their enemies occupied at a distance long enough for them to cast their spells.

But it was okay because they were going to get him back.

Colette appeared from their makeshift ridge tent, delivering two mugs of tea to the siblings.

Genis jumped up quick as lightning to retrieve the drinks from her, not out of chivalry – he was no Lloyd Irving – but because he knew full well what a klutz she could be and how the disaster of spilled tea would be nothing compared to Colette's distress over it.

"Thanks, Colette. You always make it the best."

"Oh, you're welcome!" Colette beamed over the compliment, clueless that it had snubbed Raine's cooking talents to the bottom rung. Really, who could burn tea–

"A geyser is a geyser is a geyser," interjected Raine, never passing her eyes from the book. "There is nothing particularly insightful about its history, so–"

"So, unless we're wrong, we're completely right," Genis finished, contented with their conclusion. There was nothing as satisfying as a good story except for when he could finally close the book on it. He went back to preparing to wage war, and Raine merely sipped from her tea, scouring the history book for any other leads. Colette sat down upon her hands, playing I-Spy-With-My-Little-Eye quietly by herself as she listened to the siblings talking. They had been discussing this on and off and on again since talking to Neil. None of it was news to her.

"There is no other reason for the soldiers," Raine agreed. "Tourists don't bring that kind of trouble with them." She squinted at a particular sentence. "It says here that valuables have been lost from time to time, but–"

* * *

"–But that shouldn't warrant a military camp," Sheena stated matter-of-factly.

"Nope. Especially since it was Mizuho that suffered, not the rest of us."

Sheena peered over at Zelos to see if he was deliberately being insulting or if he was doing so accidentally.

He was bent over the slab of table, using oil and whetstone and a little bit of elbow grease to sharpen his broadsword. Long locks of hair, the same shade of red as the painted lips of a Meltokio noblewoman, fell in snaking lengths over his shoulder.

Sheena sighed and, in a fondly attending manner, pulled Zelos' hair back away from his face.

The man didn't even notice. The way he worked on his blade was with obsessive intent. He was singlemindedly absorbed in the task and about as picky as Sheena had ever seen him with anything. It was surprising; the things that Zelos could be religious about. Zelos never heat treated his swords because he didn't want to lose the original geometry or temper. Instead he chose to do everything by hand, and by himself, and he was a stickler to his rules. When he did maintenance on his rapier, he was even worse.

"Maybe they really are there because of Volt."

Zelos didn't even bat an eye – well, except to stare at the length of blade downward from its basket-hilt. "Sheena, they have nothing to do with Volt."

"How do–"

"How do I know," intoned Zelos, completely blasé about the whole thing as illustrated by his tone of disinterest, his eyes on his work, and the way that he had expected her to pitch the question. "Because they haven't set foot inside, that's how I know. Stop trying to back down from the fact that you were right and I was wrong."

Sheena quietened down in a self-conscious turn, training her almond-shaped eyes to the faded violet of her arm gloves and the extension of padded fabric demi-gauntlets.

"A few days ago, hundreds of Desians marched out of that damn castle of Yggdrasill's. _Hundreds_, Sheena. That's like a small army."

"Are you scared?"

Zelos paused. Eyes flourishing with cyan ambiguity rose to meet hers. "Not scared of them, no. But some things never change." He finally rested his finished broadsword next to his small buckler. "Two things don't, at least; I still don't trust Yuan, and we still need Lloyd back."

Sheena accepted Zelos' certainty with a nod of her head. "My cards are ready."

Zelos lifted his rapier, breathed a hot breath on the forte of the metal, and polished a glamorous shine. "Then it's time to deal."


	15. Chapter 15

Desians liveried in beige and pitch filed around him, like ants en masse in their hill, swarming seamlessly as one yet splitting like fibers to take care not to brush shoulders with him. But Lloyd didn't take a single note of a single detail in a single sturdy face as it passed through his line of sight. They were stragglers commuting to their late morning business, probably only a muster away from entering into the only cohesive routine that they had. He wasn't paying any attention to them, apart from sharing the hallway while he walked directionally against the grain. In fact, he barely minded his own steps. As it was, dark eyes went unseeing while his true focus was turned in on himself – even when his outward vision fell flatly on Yuan's face at the end of the hall, the man at a direct beeline for him.

Lloyd treated his mornings without Osha like any of the countless others he'd spent when Osha had been shipped out on temporary assignment. He imagined them all to be the same, and he never grieved – not once – since that night before Osha left. In that one sleepless bout, he'd purged from himself the unfairness of it all. The catharsis had left nothing but a bit of an empty vacuum – by now, nothing new to Lloyd – and the ability to continue on. He had wondered if this meant he was becoming a stronger person.

Lloyd rubbed his eyes with hand-wrapped knuckles.

And nearly collided with the Seraph by the time his wandering mind realigned itself to what his eyes accorded. A gloved hand came to rest on his shoulder, stopping forward movement. The grip was firm but mild, gently halting his progress while tactfully preserving his personal space.

"Are you alright? You almost walked clean into me."

He blinked abashedly into Yuan's eyes of clear ocean – eyes, minutely concerned, that had appeared right in his face seemingly from out of nowhere. Lloyd swung a peek over his shoulder to find that they were the only two people left in the hallway, which meant that he didn't know how long he'd been daydreaming, which colored him all the more embarrassed.

"Sorry," he forcibly mumbled, all trace of reverie lost. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You were looking straight at me the whole time."

"Yeah, it's fine." Lloyd gazed briefly at the gold-trimmed cape that Yuan wore, establishing that he had indeed recognized the billowing red undercoat as he'd walked... and yet somehow completely hadn't registered that it was Yuan. "I just spaced out there for a sec and didn't see you. I'm sorry," he repeated, straightening his shoulders and trying to get his lost sense of dignity to meet him halfway. "What is it, Yuan?" The question was immediately forced, for Lloyd didn't want to give Yuan the chance to further doubt him – and this meeting seemed a little out of the ordinary, even for Yuan. Whatever he usually had to say to Lloyd waited until Lloyd dropped by his apartments.

Yuan removed his hand from Lloyd. He had felt the unyielding tension in that strong shoulder. Perhaps he had startled Lloyd more than first impression. Or perhaps Lloyd intuitively knew to brace himself for some unnamed incoming disappointment, even though it was the same disappointment every time. Yuan stared down – barely – at eyes rousing to bronzed curiosity.

"Your father is leaving today."

And there was the plainspoken truth, like a bombshell shock. In underhearing, the first scab Lloyd picked at was how Yuan used "your father" instead of "Kratos." Deliberately done, especially considering the risk of public location. Before he could figure out why, in swept the paralysis of feeling.

First there was only the shock, sending Lloyd into some kind of emotionally-stunned funk. He felt his heart jump in his chest as the first wave of desperation and impulse was set loose only to be dammed against the barrier of rationality. It was the calm before the levee breaks. It was that glimmer of a moment when bad news is first broken and the mind still has master over emotion. Lloyd knew this day would come, but knowing didn't necessarily make it something a son could prepare for. He felt inexplicably tied to his father, bond and blood, because when it all came down to it Lloyd trusted him – had always trusted him, he guessed, ever since he first met him. He'd even trusted him with Colette. But Kratos never did anything with that trust. He didn't encourage it or reward it, and the weeds of stagnation grew ever higher.

This rejection... this sense of loss... Lloyd grappled for a hold amid the hurt, feebly surprised at himself that he was having such a tough time of it. After all, he'd survived every one of his father's previous absences. Not to mention Lloyd had fully anticipated that this was what he'd have to go through in order to make his escape. Because Kratos had shaped it that way. Even though Lloyd had hoped... had asked Kratos not to abandon him, just this one time.

It was especially difficult on the tail of Osha's departure.

Yuan observed the transparent nature of Lloyd's expressions, followed along as the boy was made to suffer the many stages of grief in rapid-time succession. He expected that Kratos' desertion would hit Lloyd harder this time than all of the others before it, and he was right, but there was nothing he could do to make it easier on him.

Next came the shame, spilling easily through the cracks of the dam until Lloyd was mired in regret. He wasn't proud of his last conversation with Kratos. He hadn't meant to explode at him. It was just an ill-timed fluke. It wasn't like Lloyd to raise his voice except for when he was venting in the privacy of Yuan's rooms – and even then it wasn't _at_ Yuan. He never even yelled at Yggdrasill, who he positively hated. But that deeply resentful indignation had overcome him – and at Kratos, no less – at the one person from whom he personally sought approval, and he had been compelled to defend himself out of spite when all Kratos was really trying to do was save him. Incensed and humiliated, he had lashed out at Kratos because Kratos was the one person at whom he _could_. Because Kratos was his _father_. Lloyd blamed it all on himself too little, too late, underestimating the power of that guilt. He hadn't seen Kratos since then, not even by chance around Centrum, which made him suspect that Kratos was purposely avoiding him now that he had spoken his piece. It only left Lloyd wishing that he had never opened his damnable mouth. Family was supposed to be backbone, not a tantrum target.

Then the dam burst and scattered into a million useless pieces against the incredible strength of Lloyd's anger. Surging up quite out of the blue, just like the last time he'd spoken with his father Aurion, Lloyd knew that he was pissed at Kratos, and the reason for it. It was an oh so familiar condescension. Kratos always treated him like he was an idiot. He had done so on the Journey, and he still did to this very day. His own father didn't trust his discretion – hell, he hadn't even asked the details of Lloyd's plan to escape! – and he had the nerve to tell Lloyd that his plan would fail and, more than that, to stay put when _that's the one thing that Lloyd had ever asked of him_. He had already chosen Yggdrasill over him in a venture that, in Lloyd's opinion, was a hundred times stupider than his own plan to escape Centrum. History had the tendency to repeat itself a thousand times again. Kratos had abandoned Lloyd at his abduction into Cruxis, and now he had chosen to abandon him for his escape from that abduction.

Lloyd's face twisted in his split-second transference from pain to outrage. Yuan caught glimpse of the betrayal and, inwardly, he sighed, studying Lloyd as the young man dropped his head. His disheveled locks hung tasseled over his eyes, all the while the pressure increased behind emotional upheaval, growing and amplifying and building on itself until it became nothing but mindless, hyperactive irreconciliation. Lloyd's hands and shoulders shook with the force of his restraint as agony and emotion ripped through him, but all at once the trembling stopped and the tension that had been there since the beginning popped like a bubble.

"Will you be there?"

"What...?"

"For his farewell," quietly spoke Yuan.

"I... don't know." And, quite by accident, Lloyd realized that it was the hard and honest truth. "I..." Lloyd issued a deflated shrug. He didn't know how to explain what he was experiencing. The child inside him leapt at the chance to prove himself to his father. But adult logic reasoned against the fulfillment of that satisfaction. Part of him decided that Kratos didn't deserve it. Another part of him decided that he had no place with him.

Yuan looked at him with no particular expression, and that was how Lloyd knew he was making some kind of a mistake. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew. It was just a _thing_ with Yuan. Even though the Angel wouldn't pronounce a single judgment in favor of Kratos – his involvement with his son had left much to be desired – he still considered Lloyd's stance in this a bad one.

"I'll let him know," was all Yuan said.

The problem would ever remain: that Kratos wouldn't change. He never had – not in the past sixteen years – and he wouldn't start now because he had already convinced himself that it was too late to get Lloyd back. His fatalistic way of thinking had given life to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since Kratos refused to change, Yuan couldn't help but notice that Lloyd had begun to. The relationship, as it was, could not be sustained by the two Aurions, as they were. In his own Yuan way, he had fought to prevent this cataclysm... but Lloyd was changing – indeed, had been changing for a while now, little by little, in many of the wrong ways – to feed into this cycle of friction. He was turning into Kratos, only he didn't know it, and he'd loathe himself if he did, and the more that Kratos believed Lloyd lost to him, the greater the inevitability of it turning out that way.

Lloyd anxiously rubbed at his Exsphere, and Yuan could see his headache clear through the distress in his eyes. Poor Lloyd. He was a good kid with some impossible choices and not a whole lot of guidance. He couldn't be blamed for his father's recklessness, nor could he be forced to put up with it indefinitely. He couldn't stay the "gentle idealist" forever, as much as Yuan wanted to push for it, truly believing that Lloyd was the best of all the Seraphim in that he and he alone _could_ take on that pain. Even if Yuan would be the first person to admit that it wasn't fair to ask of Lloyd, it would be better than helplessly bearing witness as he followed down the same road as his father.

The silence was stretching uncomfortably long.

Lloyd somehow knew that he had come up short in the eyes of the Angel, but he had nothing else to say. Bowing his head in a decisively meek posture, he hid his eyes – the gateway to his transgressions – from Yuan. Then he silently passed Yuan by, stranding him alone in the hallway without anymore good answers.

* * *

Chipped from the craggy earth were precipices. They weren't any kind of outstanding landmarks; they were, more or less, sequestered by the hills from which they had been formed over the centuries of Time's hand. They were bouldered and bleached by the sun and overshadowed a piece of landscape that proved as today's battleground. Sheltered by the cliffs' shadow was a pool of water that was impressed into the earth to create a crooked elliptical bath. It wasn't a vast spring; it spanned about a kilometer at its widest line of length. Contrary to the austere browns and washed-out greys of the surrounding hills and plains, the water was amazingly, vividly beautiful. A blanket of steam was emitted across the surface of the water. Across the spring was a large tent, ornate and rich. It was made of canvas material and very thick, with a gorgeous exterior.

The soldiers occupying the Temple of Lightning had eyes on that tent, even though not a single soul had been witnessed entering or exiting the campsite through the fog.

About twenty meters from the north-west face of the jutting Tower, a crimson head bobbed, straining his ears for the signal. ––There, was that the trilling sound of a Chirpee? A little too eagerly, Zelos brandished his sword from its home at his hip. He rested his hot forehead against broad blade. The cool steel soothed the incessant tic in possession of the muscle at the bridge of his nose. His eyelids slid closed as he recounted the twelve Desians that they knew were there. Drops of perspiration ran down from his hairband to his weapon.

At least twelve, that was – but no turning back now.

Zelos slowly posed himself on one knee, hanging his sword low, and peered around the rock wall that hid him. He felt rash and excitable – because, if this was it, then this was _it_, and at least he would end his life carrying out one last desperate request for his dearest friend. Maybe that would make up for everything.

Everything.

Zelos planted a kiss upon cold iron and lifted the sword skyward in salute.

"Cheers, Bud."

Then he stood to his feet and walked deliberately from his cover into the plain view of the Desian militia. The first few shouts sounded more like frightened catcalls to Zelos. It felt a little unreal that they would be more startled by him than he was by them. Maybe he had Lady Luck on his side. Dying would be okay if he had a lady by his side, he decided.

The soldiers converged into formation. The shouts changed into warnings, then into explicit threats, as if his very appearance was an affront to all that was holy.

Zelos casually continued his stroll, flashing them a huge, shit-eating grin and cupping his free hand to his ear – for all the world an indication that he was too far away to make out what they were saying to him. He lured the head of the group forward, away from the Tower. They drew swords on him. Too late did they hear the distinct hissing sound of pressurized gas at their rear.

There was a flashbang that left even Zelos' ears ringing. The entire mob was enveloped in heavy black smoke. He couldn't hear the coughing and sputtering, but his hearing tuned back in right when Sheena yelled out "Now!" and he charged forward in the solitary glory of a lone martyr with the upper hand.

"Light Spear Cannon!"

* * *

Blood trickled down to temporarily blind Genis from the battle. They were outflanked and outnumbered, but somehow they kept getting their hits in. Two Desians already lay motionless on dark scarlet earth, victims of a surprise unison attack, and Genis found the thought abhorrent that they would not be standing up and dusting themselves off. But in the heat of the fight survival instinct outranked sympathy. He did a sweep for his two allies, already forgetting that he couldn't see out of one eye.

Colette was nearby, crying as she fought, uttering fervent, whispered prayers as tears leaked from her eyes.

And Raine–

"Barrier!"

A screen of light, shining like white diamonds, briefly passed over Genis – so quickly that he almost thought it was wishful thinking on his part. He took the chance now to wipe the blood from his vision, then he shot a Wind Blade to slice into the soldier who'd been circling Colette. His spell produced the desired effect, but the mana had become so thin in Sylvarant that the spellcasting Sages were at a disadvantage. Their magic wasn't as formidable as they'd hoped it would be, and it was looking pretty grim that they'd survive the siege of Thoda Geyser. Colette would have to pray a lot harder, and Raine would have to cast a little faster, and Genis would have to play offense for them the way that Lloyd always had, which was impossible for him to do.

But he'd try anyway.

The half-elf ran to the entrance with a wild cry, swinging his kendama into the jaw of a Desian with a sickening crack. Instantly, he felt a weight bearing down on his dominant shoulder, and then a warm fluid ran down his arm to sticky his palm.

"Genis!"

He heard Raine distantly calling his name, then heard her chanting for First Aid. He knew that fatigue and stale atmosphere could not afford her a Healing Circle.

"It's... alright, Sis. I don't feel a thing," comforted Genis, falling to his knees even as he spoke. He felt a strange shimmer cross his skin, akin to a pins-and-needles sensation, then it was gone. Raine was at his side, trying to serve as his crutch and get him back on his feet. His sight turned pale and spun to the sky.

"Oh, Genis, you're losing blood."

"He needs us... Raine."

"Genis..."

There was the whirlwind of chakrams over his head – he saw them somehow; was he on the ground? – and another blood-frenzied cry went up into the air, and then Colette was flanking them, trying to stave off the enemy all by herself to buy them some time.

"Somethin'... in my back. I think I'm layin'... on a rock."

"You can have a Gel for it. Only we have to get inside first." Raine instructed in tremulous tones, not at all her teacher voice. "Do you hear me, Genis?"

"Help me up," he whispered, and bit back bile and blood alike as he was hoisted to his feet.

"Professor!"

Genis closed his eyes, just for a little while, as arte names swam through his head. "Man," he whispered. "Don't you guys let up...?" Then his gut instinct settled on Stalagmite and he positioned himself to cast as a wave of soldiers emerged from the cave.

"You're gonna regret this!"

* * *

Kratos ducked under threaded steel cables, each about as thick as one of his own arms. If even one rope snapped, the recoil alone would be enough to take off his head; however, his own mortality was furthest from his consideration. Anna's death had already left him a shell of a man. Losing Lloyd would break the skeleton.

**I will not outlive my son.**

Kratos tried not to think about it as he double-checked each corner bitstock of wire rope and pipe clamping that secured high-stress points around the Cannon's trapping. He methodically examined the bracework along the circumference of the machine. Woodpiles intersected his path in stack insulation as he pondered the irascibility of his son. Lloyd had gotten very mad very quickly when Kratos had opposed his plan to leave Centrum, and that kind of temper didn't just develop overnight. It was new to Kratos, yes – and it had caught him off guard – but only repeated provocation did something like that to a child.

** Teenager. **Kratos dutifully reminded himself, for he could practically hear Yuan correcting him. **And barely that anymore.**

He'd given Lloyd a wide berth since the confrontation. It was the least he could do to make things simpler, going forward. Besides, there was nothing Kratos could do now about his mistake. If that outburst had been brewing inside Lloyd especially for him, then it was obviously a little late to apologize; that manifested a damage that was long-term. Even still, as he walked alone on one of the platforms raised four feet above the rest of the mill, Kratos wished that he had at least known about it.

Cautiously, Kratos pivoted atop steel-clad particleboard...

...until he noticed the sole figure on floor level behind the clear panel of an observation room. Lloyd himself, in the flesh, as though Kratos had thought about him so long that sorcery summoned him into being.

Lloyd was watching him, patiently awaiting any sign that would suggest Kratos had spotted him from his vantage point forty yards away.

So Kratos leveled cognac-amber sight right back at Lloyd in unblinking acknowledgment. The platform was quiet, the machine forgotten. He didn't know how long Lloyd had been standing there looking up at him, waiting to be seen, but now that Kratos saw him there was no interruption important enough.

Lloyd's face transformed when he realized that he'd grabbed the attention of his father. He silently grinned at him from his isolated location – a Lloyd-like, open-hearted grin.

Kratos looked fixedly down at his son. Lloyd was made in his likeness, yet the blithe smile that pervaded the well-favored features and strong jaw wasn't something that Kratos recalled seeing on himself when he looked into a mirror. He remembered it on Anna, though, and suddenly Kratos – who never smiled – looked honestly pleased. A mountain-sized outpouring of relief overwhelmed all faculties, softening the lines of apprehension at his brow and coaxing away the cold ache imbued in his chest that he'd been holding onto since last they spoke. He was being granted another chance. Again. The floating feeling, starting in the pit of his stomach, spread warmly through every muscle and strain. There was an affable curling of his lips as he responded to Lloyd's enduring goodness. He hadn't earned it, and he knew that with absolute conviction, and he knew it probably wouldn't be the last time that he overstepped his boundaries, but right now Lloyd seemed okay with that.

* * *

Yuan was on site, running last-minute projections from his paneled location in the west wall of the tract. His monitors were blinking out Arkha's behavior in real-time. Notwithstanding the work at hand, he paid enough attention to Kratos to realize when something had distracted his friend. Yuan had full view of Kratos' back and not much else, but he traced line of sight all the way to the younger Aurion, who had come to see his father off.

"Good boy," murmured Yuan, appreciatively. He had not, of course, related to Kratos anything about his run-in with Lloyd. The teen was entitled to an emotional breakdown now and then, as long as he had the capacity to shake it off, bounce back, and do what was right. And here he was, like a saint, backing his dad through simple, felicitous presence. Tousled bangs fell across smooth forehead in a willful luster of soft harvest-brown, tickling against full lashes that framed eyes epitomizing Aurion exactness. There was no question in those eyes, no solicitation for forgiveness, and – most importantly of all – no hatred. They were grudge-free, as if the past didn't matter. Lloyd lifted his left arm in a broad, open-handed wave.

* * *

"Kratos. Are you ready?" Yuan's static voice buzzed through the receiver.

And Kratos Aurion discovered that he was. He erected his shoulders, gazing through the partition window one last time at Lloyd, whose wave had ended with palm pressed complacently against the glass as he unreservedly watched his father.

"I am. Yes."

Then Kratos turned away and dropped from the platform, cloak fluttering mars violet in the filtered light and dead air of the enclosure. He was immediately surrounded by Desian bodies as he was led to his transport pad. When he looked again to the panel, Lloyd was gone.

"It's time."

Dark hair fell in an auburn-glinted tide at his shoulders as he tilted his chin upward to Rodyle's Cannon, the behemoth towering destiny over him and darkening his face with the shadow of the path he'd chosen. Arms loose, eyelids closing to hide the last flashes of glittering brown reaction, Kratos gave himself over to the teleportation.

Slowly, as if being enticed a single molecule at a time, Kratos Aurion faded away from Tethe'alla.

* * *

The Cannon immediately began to flicker as if a mirage. So quickly had Kratos started his game of tug-o-war with it. It took longer to transport than flesh did, but it had begun to dim and dissolve like some kind of optical illusion, like the only property of being it held was being thinned out by a ranged control.

"Lord Yuan. Lord Kratos went behind schedule."

"I am aware." But it had been worth it. Even if Yuan was the only person who knew why. He re-calibrated the system and the locus of mana for Kratos' delay. "We are lagging by forty-one seconds."

Which meant it would take six minutes and thirty-one seconds to transport the Cannon after Kratos. There was a two-hour margin of error there – and, with his prowess, if Yuan couldn't move the Cannon in that amount of time then he didn't deserve to. Yuan estimated that Kratos could re-fortify the Cannon's cloaking in two hundred twenty-one seconds if he was up against a 0.84 kilometer per hour lunar body. Then, once Kratos made the jump to Derris-Kharlan, he would have no more than two hundred forty seconds to pull the Cannon after him – which, with or without the support of angels, was tight even for the right hand of Cruxis – before they were both lost to the eclipse. The one thing that Yuan could not negotiate in this exploit was the eclipse. If they missed Arkha's orbit, they would have to wait approximately four thousand three hundred eighty-two hours for its next revolution. Frankly, Derris-Kharlan wouldn't last even the turn of a season.

"Lord Yuan...!"

A Desian in standard issue uniform hustled to Yuan's side.

"This is time-sens–"

"Forgive me, Lord Yuan." He drew himself up in a hasty salute. "But you should watch your step. The tiling is wet."

Yuan froze stock-still, statuesque but for the rare cast of astonishment not quite completely suppressed in glinting verdigris stare. If he had a single impulsive bone in his body, he would shake the soldier by his shoulders til his brain rattled in his head and ask him if he was _certain._ But he didn't, and there was no need. His Renegades had been well trained.

"Blood of Sylph," he cursed, throwing himself away from the console – rather enthusiastically, for him – just in time to witness Rodyle's Cannon vanishing into thin air.

"Lord Yuan, checkpoint. Lord Kratos has pulled it through."

Too late to abort the bloody plan. Not that Mithos would afford it to be aborted. Yuan hesitated for but a moment, torn between duty and split-second decision, and even this was costing him too much precious time. "His position?" For he had to make a choice between his friend or the future of his friend's son.

"It's difficult to read." They thought Lord Yuan's displeasure corresponded with the eclipse, the black-out, and the difficulty it presented–

** You're on your own, old friend.**

–until he bailed on the whole damned convoluted mission. "Take over here."

Not one Desian dared voice an argument against him, nor did any one Desian have his wits about to do so. One of the Ranks was waved to the console.

Yuan gave a curt nod in the direction of the messenger Renegade disguised as a Desian. "Walk with me."

They left at a modestly energetic pace. Automatic doors slid open for their hasty retreat.

"Send me my men."

"Already done, sir."

"Go straight to Yggdrasill and don't answer any of his questions. Follow protocol – no more, no less. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Keep your ears on."

Yuan branched away from the Renegade at the next hall. He was almost running, mindful that Mithos had probably already been alerted to his abandonment of post at such a critical time – mindful also that Lloyd's friends didn't have much time left–

"Yuan!"

Speak of the devil, and he comes. There was Lloyd at his elbow, two beats shy of pace. He was actually jogging to catch up to Yuan.

"Lloyd, I don't have time right now."

Ordinarily – respectfully – that would have been the end of it. Lloyd knew to leave him alone when he was working, but– "Gimme two seconds, c'mon!" –but Lloyd had snuck out the way he had snuck in and had been waiting outside the doors of the restricted area with teenaged patience and high-strung nerves for news of his father's embarkation. He'd planned to linger there until it was done and then pump Yuan for information the moment he came out. But, for months of planning, it all seemed over awfully fast...

"I'm leaving Centrum."

"Wh-What? Why? _Now?_"

Yuan took notice of the disorientation those limited few words had caused. He didn't slow down. Lloyd was at his heels, close enough that Yuan could sense the heated concern as it coasted off of him in waves.

"But... But _Kratos_–"

"Not now." And Yuan pushed ahead, silencing Lloyd by his tone alone.

Submissively, Lloyd trailed to a stop, staring bewildered after Yuan as he disappeared from view. All assurance had been shot to pieces. It didn't take much to shake Lloyd's world, but it took a lot to shake Yuan, and Lloyd would have thought nothing of it if it hadn't been for the somber urgency coarsening the Seraph's words. Sure, Yuan had his supercilious moments when he would entertain neither affectation nor friendship. Lloyd knew that better than anyone. But Yuan hadn't just walked out on him or Yggdrasill.

He had just walked out on Kratos Aurion, and who – or what? – could be more important than that?

"What the hell is going on?" Lloyd leaned heavily against the wall, arms tucked behind his waist. Then came to him an acute impact of comprehending that Osha, Kratos, and Yuan were gone.

They were _all_ gone.

His eyes rounded wide with lightning intention.

Lloyd launched himself from the wall at a dead run.

Amid this chaos, it was his time.

* * *

"Something needs to happen. _Now_."

A crossbolt exploded the rock an inch or so away from Zelos' face, spraying him with mineral granite and eliciting a gagging, powdery cough. He and Sheena had somehow managed to get into the Temple of Lightning through a harrowing game of cat-and-mouse, but now they were boxed in and it was no question who the mice were. Zelos counted it pure luck that they'd lived even this long. Truth was, he had never expected in a million years to actually make it _into_ the Temple.

"I mean right _now_," Zelos choked out – or, so help him, he'd try something rash, and Sheena would never forgive him. He wiped his dust-streaked face and winced as calloused fingers ran over a gash at his eyebrow. His fingertips felt cold to him.

As if in answer to prayer, something did begin to happen. Zelos heard an alarmed chorus of shouts outside. He limped three steps away from hiding, and the next moment he was eating floor, flat on his face from a quake that shook the world like cannonfire.

"Sheena," he sputtered. He shakily lifted his head.

And balked.

He watched uncomprehendingly as Desians suddenly turned on Desians in a bloodbath of anarchy, and there, parading into the territory like he owned the place, was none other than that bastard Yuan. He seemed... cross. And he had Sheena in tow, his elbow around her throat. She was stumbling to match his pace.

When Sheena saw Zelos, she cried out his name, and Yuan's icy glare shot over to him.

"Move. Now."

Zelos did. He lurched to his feet, swaying. An arm wrapped quickly around his shoulders, and with it came the scent of something astral and powerful. He wouldn't have been able to describe the alien chill that shuddered through him at the mere touch of this half-elf Seraph of Cruxis who meant business.

"Burn the bodies," he heard Yuan order to someone. "Leave no trace."

Holding fast to them with both arms, Yuan half- walked, half- dragged Sheena and Zelos to the portal that he knew was hidden there. "Hold onto me and to each other. Don't let go."

"Wait, wh–"

Suddenly a giant swell of pressure blasted outward and the air ripped, quivered, and pulsed into a hole of light.

Into which Yuan then obliged to jump.

* * *

"Raine, look!" Genis had been tuned to the strange ripple of mana inside Thoda Geyser sheer seconds before the atmosphere split. A gaping maw of white cracked open out of nothing. Through it poured more Desians.

"No," breathed Raine, utterly spent. "We are finished."

Then the strangely familiar outline of a person became visible. The light erased pupils and color, but Genis knew it was Zelos as soon as those white-lit eyes landed upon him. Beside him was Sheena.

And another figure was there, one to whom they both clung like a lifeline.

"Lloyd...?" Genis' voice was hopeful.

But it wasn't Lloyd at all. It was Yuan the Angel who came through, an arm sanctimoniously curled around either Tethe'allan.

The light spit them out, shuddered, and then imploded, sending the Seraph down on one knee as a vortex force rebound behind him until the invisible gale blinked itself out with a strange, sucking noise.

Yuan released Sheena and Zelos to the earth before he righted himself.

"Lord Yuan!" A Desian was running toward him, pain and confusion mightily apparent on his face. "Lord Yuan, what–" A grotesque crunching sound stopped the Desian right in front of the Seraph. A look of wonderment passed over eyes already draining of vitality. Yuan's cloak fluttered to his feet as he drew the clasp, revealing the sword impaled between the Desian's ribs. He leaned forward, embracing him, as he gave his sword a fierce twist to ensure that the soldier did not suffer. When he yanked out two feet of smooth steel, the Desian coughed up scarlet, and the grey film of death settled over his sightless gaze, and he died by the time he hit the ground.

Under some unspoken command of chaos, the Desians immediately began attacking _each other_. Brother pitted himself against brother in a slaughter zone. Fourteen corpses piled up within the first minute.

Now Yuan actually looked angry. By no means did he take any pleasure in cutting down half-elves. He stalked, infuriated, between fallen bodies. He had been hoping that it wouldn't come to this.

"Are they dead? Are you sure? ...Kill anyone who comes through."

* * *

Lloyd passed through whitewashed corridors and access hatches, his heart drumming up a reveille in his chest. There were scattered herds of Desian guards rushing back the way he'd come. Probably to take control of the situation that Yuan had created and left for them. Lloyd tugged down on the olive-drab bill of his cap and dropped his eyes to stained linoleum. The dusky military jacket he wore had actually been stolen from Kratos' cabinet. It must've been old. The grommets around the charcoal collar held tarnish, and Lloyd didn't remember ever seeing Kratos wear it, but it was the first article of clothing of his father's that he'd willingly put on. It fit well, it was warm – and lucky, he hoped – and it still smelled of Kratos and the salty tang of travel. He hoped it made him stand out a little less. He hoped it could dupe a Cruxis scout for even one extra minute. He hoped it would disguise who he was and buy him just a little more time for a little more distance...

Almost there.

Lloyd urged more speed from his legs. So far, nobody had even looked at him.

That is, until he followed the south-west bend and came face to face with Seraph Leader Mithos Yggdrasill and his heavenly host of angels.

Then he just stopped breathing – for all the bad luck it brought him.

"Our evening palaver, I'm afraid to say, had to be pushed forward. Call it a conflict of schedule."

Lloyd's complexion blanched against dark matted hair. He said nothing.

Yggdrasill took his first few steps with a serpent grace. "So I thought to myself, 'Why not escort him personally?' What more appropriate way to express my heartfelt apology for any inconvenience this may have caused you?"

Not a single brave word found Lloyd's tongue.

"You look the part," commented Yggdrasill with a scornful grin as he beheld Lloyd in the raiment of Cruxis foot soldiers. "Tell me, where were you going? We can conclude your business first."

"Yggdrasill, I–"

"Take your hat off, boy, when you're talking to me."

The annoyance flooded forth with such vengeance, relieving Lloyd of his stupefaction. Obediently the cap slid off, and Lloyd shook out his overgrown locks of hair, frowning defiantly at Yggdrasill as his mane tumbled thickly down the length of jaw and neck. Then his frown changed states from reflex to opinion – it became a little less about being caught and a little more about being caught by Yggdrasill – and his eyes lit with ire.

"Bring him along." Yggdrasill signaled with his fingers. Hands promptly found Lloyd and pinched hard into his neck and shoulders as he was made to follow the Angel. They retraced his steps. Each hall took him farther and farther away from escape. Pretty soon, though, they reached the Great Hall.

Yggdrasill turned inside. Lloyd and the guards, however, passed right by.

"Where are we going?" Lloyd growled. They were soon walking along the same square of Centrum that housed the prison cells, but they had steered course through a strip that Lloyd didn't recognize. An iron-thick door swung open. And in Lloyd was shoved. He regained his balance by the time the door closed with its bang of finality.

There wasn't much in the room, he saw, as he took a few awkward steps to explore his new confines.

A chair. A table. The walls were windowless except for a panel high on the back wall. There was a stair ladder that led up to it.

Lloyd tread an empty echo.

But there was one element to this room that made it dangerous. Lloyd just didn't see it in time.

He knew a little too late that something had come up behind him, but his body didn't move quickly enough.

"Nnghh–!" he grunted wetly, stiffly, as a pain the like of which he'd never before experienced burgeoned savagely inside of him. There was the instance of distinct, unprecedented revelation when Lloyd realized that he'd just been run through. He dared look down at himself. Two wrought-iron nails protruded clean through his chest, just under his left clavicle. At mere sight of the ghastly image, eyes of ash went berserk, and his pupils became sharp pinpricks amid glazed-over agony. "Hnn...h..." Lloyd panted out, twice, his chest heaving, convulsing. Blood foamed behind his teeth in liquid torrents and spilled past his lips as he gagged.

"Surprise, surprise, Lloyd Aurion. Remember me?" came a scratchy voice at his ear.

Something suddenly twisted in his back, paring skin from muscle, and Lloyd crashed down on all fours. It was a mistake, as the nails could only come out the way they'd gone in, and he could feel the jagged barbs sawing their way back through him. His own crimson life slickened the floor, pouring in great gobs from the holes in his chest.

"I am Halle, retainer to Cruxis. And you belong to him now."


End file.
